Critical Exponents for Supercooled Liquids

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective theory for supercooled liquids, revealing universal critical exponents that describe divergence of correlation length, growth of heterogeneity, and relaxation times.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework linking supercooled liquids' behavior to critical phenomena, providing new predictions for their universal features.

Findings

Correlation length diverges with Ising exponent

Heterogeneous patch size grows faster than correlation length

Relaxation time follows a generalized Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann relation

Abstract

We compute critical exponents governing universal features of supercooled liquids through the effective theory of an overlap field. The correlation length diverges with the Ising exponent; the size of dynamically heterogeneous patches grows more rapidly; and the relaxation time obeys a generalized Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann relation.