Crossover behavior and multi-step relaxation in a schematic model of the cut-off glass transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates a schematic mode-coupling model where the ideal glass transition is cut off by a decay in the quadratic coupling, revealing complex relaxation behaviors similar to experimental observations in colloidal and molecular glasses.

Contribution

It introduces a modified schematic model with decaying coupling constants to explain crossover and multi-step relaxation phenomena in glassy systems.

Findings

Crossover from typical to slower-than-exponential alpha relaxation.

Emergence of a third, weaker relaxation mode resembling the beta process.

Qualitative features of the ideal glass transition can be observed despite the cutoff.

Abstract

We study a schematic mode-coupling model in which the ideal glass transition is cut off by a decay of the quadratic coupling constant in the memory function. (Such a decay, on a time scale tau_I, has been suggested as the likely consequence of activated processes.) If this decay is complete, so that only a linear coupling remains at late times, then the alpha relaxation shows a temporal crossover from a relaxation typical of the unmodified schematic model to a final strongly slower-than-exponential relaxation. This crossover, which differs somewhat in form from previous schematic models of the cut-off glass transition, resembles light-scattering experiments on colloidal systems, and can exhibit a `slower-than-alpha' relaxation feature hinted at there. We also consider what happens when a similar but incomplete decay occurs, so that a significant level of quadratic coupling remains for t>>tau_I. In this case the correlator acquires a third, weaker relaxation mode at intermediate times. This empirically resembles the beta process seen in many molecular glass formers. It disappears when the initial as well as the final quadratic coupling lies on the liquid side of the glass transition, but remains present even when the final coupling is only just inside the liquid (so that the alpha relaxation time is finite, but too long to measure). Our results are suggestive of how, in a cut-off glass, the underlying `ideal' glass transition predicted by mode-coupling theory can remain detectable through qualitative features in dynamics.