Acoustic wave propagation through a supercooled liquid: A normal mode analysis

TL;DR

This study investigates how acoustic waves propagate in supercooled liquids by analyzing vibrational normal modes, revealing complex decay behaviors and anomalous dispersion due to disorder.

Contribution

It introduces a normal mode analysis approach to understand acoustic wave behavior in supercooled liquids with disordered structures.

Findings

Acoustic waves decompose into many normal modes in supercooled liquids.

Rapid decay of acoustic waves due to mode broadening.

Anomalous wavenumber dependence of dispersion and attenuation.

Abstract

The mechanism of acoustic wave propagation in supercooled liquids is not yet fully understood since the vibrational dynamics of supercooled liquids are strongly affected by their amorphous inherent structures. In this paper, the acoustic wave propagation in a supercooled model liquid is studied by using normal mode analysis. Due to the highly disordered inherent structure, a single acoustic wave is decomposed into many normal modes in broad frequency range. This causes the rapid decay of the acoustic wave and results in anomalous wavenumber dependency of the dispersion relation and the rate of attenuation.