Specific heat anomaly in a supercooled liquid with amorphous boundary conditions

TL;DR

This study investigates the specific heat behavior of a supercooled liquid confined in a spherical cavity with amorphous boundaries, revealing a size-dependent peak that persists in the thermodynamic limit and analyzing it through finite-size scaling.

Contribution

It introduces a finite-size scaling analysis of specific heat in a supercooled liquid with amorphous boundary conditions, exploring different theoretical scenarios.

Findings

Peak in specific heat depends on cavity size and persists at finite temperature.

Finite-size scaling analysis supports the existence of a finite-temperature peak.

Results align with nonstandard exponents and random first-order theory scenarios.

Abstract

We study the specific heat of a model supercooled liquid confined in a spherical cavity with amorphous boundary conditions. We find the equilibrium specific heat has a cavity-size-dependent peak as a function of temperature. The cavity allows us to perform a finite-size scaling (FSS) analysis, which indicates that the peak persists at a finite temperature in the thermodynamic limit. We attempt to collapse the data onto a FSS curve according to different theoretical scenarios, obtaining reasonable results in two cases: a "not-so-simple" liquid with nonstandard values of the exponents {\alpha} and {\nu}, and random first-order theory, with two different length scales.