Aging in a free-energy landscape model for glassy relaxation

TL;DR

This paper investigates aging in a free-energy landscape model for glassy relaxation, showing that molecular orientations re-equilibrate slower than translational motions after a temperature quench, with re-equilibration times linked to primary relaxation.

Contribution

It introduces a free-energy landscape model to analyze aging in supercooled liquids, highlighting differences in re-equilibration times for orientations and translations.

Findings

Orientation re-equilibration is slower than translation.

Re-equilibration time scales with primary relaxation.

Model captures aging dynamics in glassy systems.

Abstract

The aging properties of a simple free-energy landscape model for the primary relaxation in supercooled liquids are investigated. The intermediate scattering function and the rotational correlation functions are calculated for the generic situation of a quench from a high temperature to below the glass transition temperature. It is found that the re-equilibration of molecular orientations takes longer than for translational degrees of freedom. The time scale for re-equilibration is determined by that of the primary relaxation as an intrinsic property of the model.