Mechanical Properties of Glass Forming Systems

Abstract

We address the interesting temperature range of a glass forming system where the mechanical properties are intermediate between those of a liquid and a solid. We employ an efficient Monte-Carlo method to calculate the elastic moduli, and show that in this range of temperatures the moduli are finite for short times and vanish for long times, where `short' and `long' depend on the temperature. By invoking some exact results from statistical mechanics we offer an alternative method to compute shear moduli using Molecular Dynamics simulations, and compare those to the Monte-Carlo method. The final conclusion is that these systems are not "viscous fluids" in the usual sense, as their actual time-dependence concatenates solid-like materials with varying local shear moduli.

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Ergodicity and Slowing Down in Glass-Forming Systems with Soft Potentials: No Finite-Temperature Singularities
• Ageing and Relaxation in Glass Forming Systems
• Theory of Specific Heat in Glass Forming Systems
• Non-Universality of the Specific Heat in Glass Forming Systems
• Quantitative Theory of a Relaxation Function in a Glass-Forming System