2007/11/30 by Måns Elenius, M. Elenius, Mikhail Dzugutov +1
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0953-8984/21/24/245101
published as J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21 (2009) 245101 · 8 pages, 4 figures
openalex publication_date 2009/05/12 · arxiv created 2009/05/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We examine structural relaxation in a supercooled glass-forming liquid simulated by constant-energy constant-volume (NVE) molecular dynamics. Time correlations of the total kinetic energy fluctuations are used as a comprehensive measure of the system's approach to the ergodic equilibrium. We find that, under cooling, the total structural relaxation becomes delayed as compared with the decay of the component of the intermediate scattering function corresponding to the main peak of the structure factor. This observation can be explained by collective movements of particles preserving many-body structural correlations within compact three-dimensional (3D) cooperatively rearranging regions.