Quantifying Spatially Heterogeneous Dynamics in Computer Simulations of Glassforming Liquids

TL;DR

This paper investigates how particle motion in simulated glass-forming liquids varies across space, revealing that spatial correlations grow longer-range as temperature approaches the critical point, enhancing understanding of glassy dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces multiple methods to quantify spatial correlations in particle motion and demonstrates their temperature-dependent behavior in glass-forming liquids.

Findings

Spatial correlations of particle displacements increase with decreasing temperature.

Correlations become increasingly long-range near the mode coupling critical temperature.

Provides new quantitative tools for analyzing dynamical heterogeneity.

Abstract

We examine the phenomenon of dynamical heterogeneity in computer simulations of an equilibrium, glass-forming liquid. We describe several approaches to quantify the spatial correlation of single-particle motion, and show that spatial correlations of particle displacements become increasingly long-range as the temperature decreases toward the mode coupling critical temperature.