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

Magnetic Superstructure in the Two-Dimensional Quantum Antiferromagnet SrCu2(BO3)2

We report the observation of magnetic superstructure in a magnetization plateau state of SrCu2(BO3)2, a frustrated quasi-two-dimensional quantum spin system. The Cu and B nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra at 35 mllikelvin indicate an apparently discontinuous phase transition from uniform magnetization to a modulated superstructure near 27 tesla, above which a magnetization plateau at 1/8 of the full saturation has been observed. Comparison of the Cu NMR spectrum and the theoretical analysis of a Heisenberg spin model demonstrates the crystallization of itinerant triplets in the plateau phase within a large rhomboid unit cell (16 spins per layer) showing oscillations of the spin polarization. Thus we are now in possession of an interesting model system to study a localization transition of strongly interacting quantum particles.Comment: PDF file, 16 pages, 5 figure

Finite size effects in the dynamics of glass-forming liquids

We present a comprehensive theoretical study of finite size effects in the relaxation dynamics of glass-forming liquids. Our analysis is motivated by recent theoretical progress regarding the understanding of relevant correlation length scales in liquids approaching the glass transition. We obtain predictions both from general theoretical arguments and from a variety of specific perspectives: mode-coupling theory, kinetically constrained and defect models, and random first order transition theory. In the latter approach, we predict in particular a non-monotonic evolution of finite size effects across the mode-coupling crossover due to the competition between mode-coupling and activated relaxation. We study the role of competing relaxation mechanisms in giving rise to non-monotonic finite size effects by devising a kinetically constrained model where the proximity to the mode-coupling singularity can be continuously tuned by changing the lattice topology. We use our theoretical findings to interpret the results of extensive molecular dynamics studies of four model liquids with distinct structures and kinetic fragilities. While the less fragile model only displays modest finite size effects, we find a more significant size dependence evolving with temperature for more fragile models, such as Lennard-Jones particles and soft spheres. Finally, for a binary mixture of harmonic spheres we observe the predicted non-monotonic temperature evolution of finite size effects near the fitted mode-coupling singularity, suggesting that the crossover from mode-coupling to activated dynamics is more pronounced for this model. Finally, we discuss the close connection between our results and the recent report of a non-monotonic temperature evolution of a dynamic length scale near the mode-coupling crossover in harmonic spheres.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. V2: response to referees + refs added (close to published version

What does the potential energy landscape tell us about the dynamics of supercooled liquids and glasses?

For a model glass-former we demonstrate via computer simulations how macroscopic dynamic quantities can be inferred from a PEL analysis. The essential step is to consider whole superstructures of many PEL minima, called metabasins, rather than single minima. We show that two types of metabasins exist: some allowing for quasi-free motion on the PEL (liquid-like), the others acting as traps (solid-like). The activated, multi-step escapes from the latter metabasins are found to dictate the slowing down of dynamics upon cooling over a much broader temperature range than is currently assumed

Critical fluctuations and breakdown of Stokes-Einstein relation in the Mode-Coupling Theory of glasses

We argue that the critical dynamical fluctuations predicted by the mode-coupling theory (MCT) of glasses provide a natural mechanism to explain the breakdown of the Stokes-Einstein relation. This breakdown, observed numerically and experimentally in a region where MCT should hold, is one of the major difficulty of the theory, for which we propose a natural resolution based on the recent interpretation of the MCT transition as a bona fide critical point with a diverging length scale. We also show that the upper critical dimension of MCT is d_c=8.Comment: Proceedings of the workshop on non-equilibrium phenomena in supercooled fluids, glasses and amorphous materials (17-22 September, 2006, Pisa

Field-Induced Effects of Anisotropic Magnetic Interactions in SrCu2(BO3)2

We observed a field-induced staggered magnetization in the 2D frustrated dimer-singlet spin system SrCu2(BO3)2 by 11B NMR, from which the magnitudes of the intradimer Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction and the staggered g-tensor were determined. These anisotropic interactions cause singlet-triplet mixing and eliminate a quantum phase transition at the expected critical field Hc for gap closing. They also provide a quantitative account for some puzzling phenomena such as the onset of a uniform magnetization below the and the persistence of the excitation gap above Hc. The gap was accurately determined from the activation energy of the nuclear relaxation rate.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, published versio

Similar glassy features in the NMR response of pure and disordered La1.88Sr0.12CuO4

High Tc superconductivity in La2-xSrxCuO4 coexists with (striped and glassy) magnetic order. Here, we report NMR measurements of the 139La spin-lattice relaxation, which displays a stretched-exponential time dependence, in both pure and disordered x=0.12 single crystals. An analysis in terms of a distribution of relaxation rates T1^-1 indicates that i) the spin-freezing temperature is spatially inhomogeneous with an onset at Tg(onset)=20 K for the pristine samples, and ii) the width of the T1^-1 distribution in the vicinity of Tg(onset) is insensitive to an ~1% level of atomic disorder in CuO2 planes. This suggests that the stretched-exponential 139La relaxation, considered as a manifestation of the systems glassiness, may not arise from quenched disorder.Comment: 7 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Real space application of the mean-field description of spin glass dynamics

The out of equilibrium dynamics of finite dimensional spin glasses is considered from a point of view going beyond the standard `mean-field theory' versus `droplet picture' debate of the last decades. The main predictions of both theories concerning the spin glass dynamics are discussed. It is shown, in particular, that predictions originating from mean-field ideas concerning the violations of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem apply quantitatively, provided one properly takes into account the role of the spin glass coherence length which plays a central role in the droplet picture. Dynamics in a uniform magnetic field is also briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figures. v2: published versio

Finite-size scaling for non-linear rheology of fluids confined in a small space

We perform molecular dynamics simulations in order to examine the rheological transition of fluids confined in a small space. By performing finite-size scaling analysis, we demonstrate that this rheological transition results from the competition between the system size and the length scale of cooperative particle motion.Comment: 4pages, 8 figure