A crossover in spatio-temporal correlations of strain fluctuations in glass forming liquids

Abstract

Via molecular dynamics simulations of a generic glass former in the supercooled and normal liquid states, it is shown that spatial correlations of strain fluctuations exhibit a crossover from the well-established power-law $\sim 1/r^3$-decay at long wavelengths to an exponential behavior, $\sim \exp (-r/l_{\text{c}})$ at intermediate distances. The characteristic length of the exponential decay grows both with temperature and time via, $l_{\text{c}}^2\propto D(T)t$, with $D(T)$ being the temperature-dependent diffusion coefficient. This suggests that the crossover between the power-law and exponential decays is governed by a diffusion process.