English

Universal Structural Relaxation in Supercooled Liquids

Soft Condensed Matter 2021-04-16 v1

Abstract

One of the hallmarks of molecular dynamics in deeply supercooled liquids is the non-exponential character of the relaxation functions. It has been a long standing issue if 'universal' features govern the lineshape of glassy dynamics independent of any particular molecular structure or interaction. In the paper, we elucidate this matter by giving a comprehensive comparison of the spectral shape of depolarized light scattering and dielectric data of deeply supercooled liquids. The light scattering spectra of very different systems, e.g. hydrogen bonding and van der Waals liquids but also ionic systems, almost perfectly superimpose and show a generic lineshape of the structural relaxation, approximately following a high frequency power law ω1/2\omega^{-1/2} . However, the dielectric loss peak shows a more individual shape. In systems with low dipole moment generic behavior is also observed in the dielectric spectra, while in strongly dipolar liquids additional crosscorrelation contributions mask the generic structural relaxation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2008.01021,
  title  = {Universal Structural Relaxation in Supercooled Liquids},
  author = {Florian Pabst and Jan Gabriel and Till Böhmer and Peter Weigl and Andreas Helbling and Timo Richter and Parvaneh Zourchang and Thomas Walther and Thomas Blochowicz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.01021},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:36:33.111Z