2004/02/29 by S. Davatolhagh, S Davatolhagh
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Glass properties and applications #Material Dynamics and Properties #Material Science and Thermodynamics #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0953-8984/17/14/017
published as J. Phys.:Condens. Matter 17, 1275-1285 (2005) · Revised version, 7 pages, no figures, submitted to IOP Publishing
openalex publication_date 2005/03/25 · arxiv created 2005/07/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A general identification of the \em positional specific heat as the thermodynamic response function associated with the \em static relaxation length is proposed, and a phenomenological description for the thermal dependence of the static relaxation length in supercooled liquids is presented. Accordingly, through a phenomenological determination of positional specific heat of supercooled liquids, we arrive at the thermal variation of the static relaxation length ξ, which is found to vary in accordance with ξ ∼ (T-T0)-ν in the quasi-equilibrium supercooled temperature regime, where T0 is the Vogel-Fulcher temperature and exponent ν equals unity. This result to a certain degree agrees with that obtained from mean field theory of random-first-order transition, which suggests a power law temperature variation for ξ with an apparent divergence at T0. However, the phenomenological exponent ν = 1, is higher than the corresponding mean field estimate (becoming exact in infinite dimensions), and in perfect agreement with the relaxation length exponent as obtained from the numerical simulations of the same models of structural glass in three spatial dimensions.