When gel and glass meet: A mechanism for multistep relaxation

Abstract

We use computer simulations to study the dynamics of a physical gel at high densities where gelation and the glass transition interfere. We report and provide detailed physical understanding of complex relaxation patterns for time correlation functions which generically decay in a three-step process. For certain combinations of parameters we find logarithmic decays of the correlators and subdiffusive particle motion.

4 pages, 5 figures

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• Active interaction switching controls the dynamic heterogeneity of soft colloidal dispersions
• Statistical mechanical approach to secondary processes and structural relaxation in glasses and glass formers
• Glassy behaviour of sticky spheres: What lies beyond experimental timescales?
• Waiting-time dependent non-equilibrium phase diagram of simple glass- and gel-forming liquids
• The mode-coupling glass transition in a fluid confined by a periodic potential
• Connecting real glasses to mean-field models
• Cluster structure and dynamics in gels and glasses
• Relaxation functions and dynamical heterogeneities in a model of chemical gel interfering with glass transition
• Decoupling of single-particle and collective dynamics in arrested phase-separating glassy mixtures
• Analytical treatment of the structure and thermodynamics of the square-well fluid