Fluctuation-dissipation relation in a sheared fluid

In a fluid out of equilibrium, the fluctuation dissipation theorem (FDT) is usually violated. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we study in detail the relationship between correlation and response functions in a fluid driven into a stationary non-equilibrium state. Both the high temperature fluid state and the low temperature glassy state are investigated. In the glassy state, the violation of the FDT is quantitatively identical to the one observed previously in an aging system in the absence of external drive. In the fluid state, violations of the FDT appear only when the fluid is driven beyond the linear response regime, and are then similar to those observed in the glassy state. These results are consistent with the picture obtained earlier from theoretical studies of driven mean-field disordered models, confirming the similarity between these models and real glasses.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 3 ps figure

Shearing a Glassy Material: Numerical Tests of Nonequilibrium Mode-Coupling Approaches and Experimental Proposals

The predictions of a nonequilibrium schematic mode-coupling theory developed to describe the nonlinear rheology of soft glassy materials have been numerically challenged in a sheared binary Lennard-Jones mixture. The theory gives an excellent description of the stress/temperature `jamming phase diagram' of the system. In the present paper, we focus on the issue of an effective temperature Teff for the slow modes of the fluid, as defined from a generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem. As predicted theoretically, many different observables are found to lead to the same value of Teff, suggesting several experimental procedures to measure Teff. New, simple experimental protocols to access Teff from a generalized equipartition theorem are also proposed, and one such experiment is numerically performed. These results give strong support to the thermodynamic interpretation of Teff and make it experimentally accessible in a very direct way.Comment: Version accepted for publication - Physical Review Letter

Structural Relaxation of a Gel Modeled by Three Body Interactions

We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of a model gel whose interaction potential is obtained by modifying the three body Stillinger-Weber model potential for silicon. The modification reduces the average coordination number, and suppresses the liquid-gas phase coexistence curve. The low density, low temperature equilibrium gel that can thus form exhibits interesting dynamical behavior, including compressed exponential relaxation of density correlations. We show that motion responsible for such relaxation has ballistic character, and arises from the motion of chain segments in the gel without the restructuring of the gel network.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Fluctuation dissipation ratio in an aging Lennard-Jones glass

By using extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations, we have determined the violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in a Lennard-Jones liquid quenched to low temperatures. For this we have calculated $X(C)$, the ratio between a one particle time-correlation function $C$ and the associated response function. Our results are best fitted by assuming that $X(C)$ is a discontinuous, piecewise constant function. This is similar to what is found in spin systems with one step replica symmetry breaking. This strengthen the conjecture of a similarity between the phase space structure of structural glasses and such spin systems.Comment: improved data and metho

Characterizing dynamic length scales in glass-forming liquids

Reply to Comment by Flenner and Szamel on our paper in Nature Physics 8, 164 (2012).Comment: 1 pag

How does the relaxation of a supercooled liquid depend on its microscopic dynamics?

Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate how the relaxation dynamics of a simple supercooled liquid with Newtonian dynamics differs from the one with a stochastic dynamics. We find that, apart from the early beta-relaxation regime, the two dynamics give rise to the same relaxation behavior. The increase of the relaxation times of the system upon cooling, the details of the alpha-relaxation, as well as the wave vector dependence of the Edwards-Anderson-parameters are independent of the microscopic dynamics.Comment: 6 pages of Latex, 4 figure

The Debye-Waller factor of liquid silica: Theory and simulation

We show that the prediction of mode-coupling theory for a model of a network-forming strong glass-former correctly describes the wave-vector dependence of the Debye-Waller factor. To obtain a good description it is important to take into account the triplet correlation function c_3, which we evaluate from a computer simulation. Our results support the possibility that this theory is able to accurately describe the non-ergodicity parameters of simple as well as of network-forming liquids.Comment: 5 pages of Latex, 3 figure

Some Finite Size Effects in Simulations of Glass Dynamics

We present the results of a molecular dynamics computer simulation in which we investigate the dynamics of silica. By considering different system sizes, we show that in simulations of the dynamics of this strong glass former surprisingly large finite size effects are present. In particular we demonstrate that the relaxation times of the incoherent intermediate scattering function and the time dependence of the mean squared displacement are affected by such finite size effects. By compressing the system to high densities, we transform it to a fragile glass former and find that for that system these types of finite size effects are much weaker.Comment: 12 pages of RevTex, 4 postscript figures available from W. Ko

Intermittent origin of the large violations of the fluctuation dissipation relations in an aging polymer glass

The fluctuation-dissipation relation (FDR) is measured on the dielectric properties of a polymer glass (polycarbonate)in the range $20mHz - 100Hz$. It is found that after a quench below the glass transition temperature the fluctuation dissipation theorem is strongly violated. The amplitude and the persistence time of this violation are decreasing functions of frequency. At frequencies larger than 1Hz it persists for about $3h$. The origin of this violation is a highly intermittent dynamics characterized by large fluctuations. The relevance of these results for recent models of aging dynamics are discussed.Comment: to be published in Europhysics Letter

A quantitative test of the mode-coupling theory of the ideal glass transition for a binary Lennard-Jones system

Using a molecular dynamics computer simulation we determine the temperature dependence of the partial structure factors for a binary Lennard-Jones system. These structure factors are used as input data to solve numerically the wave-vector dependent mode-coupling equations in the long time limit. Using the so determined solutions, we compare the predictions of mode-coupling theory (MCT) with the results of a previously done molecular dynamics computer simulation [Phys. Rev. E 51, 4626 (1995), ibid. 52, 4134 (1995)]. From this comparison we conclude that MCT gives a fair estimate of the critical coupling constant, a good estimate of the exponent parameter, predicts the wave-vector dependence of the various nonergodicity parameters very well, except for very large wave-vectors, and gives also a very good description of the space dependence of the various critical amplitudes. In an attempt to correct for some of the remaining discrepancies between the theory and the results of the simulation, we investigate two small (ad hoc) modifications of the theory. We find that one modification gives a worse agreement between theory and simulation, whereas the second one leads to an improved agreement.Comment: Figures available from W. Ko