Waiting-time dependent non-equilibrium phase diagram of simple glass- and gel-forming liquids
arXiv:2104.08412 · doi:10.1063/5.0039524
Abstract
Under many circumstances many soft and hard materials are present in a puzzling wealth of non-equilibrium amorphous states, whose properties are not stationary and depend on preparation. They are often summarized in unconventional "phase diagrams" that exhibit new "phases" and/or "transitions", in which the time, however, is an essential variable. This work proposes a solution to the problem of theoretically defining and predicting these non-equilibrium phases and their time-evolving phase diagrams, given the underlying molecular interactions. We demonstrate that these non-equilibrium phases and the corresponding non-stationary (i.e., aging) phase diagrams can indeed be defined and predicted using the kinetic perspective of a novel non-equilibrium statistical mechanical theory of irreversible processes. This is illustrated with the theoretical description of the transient process of dynamic arrest into non-equilibrium amorphous solid phases, of an instantaneously-quenched simple model fluid involving repulsive hard-sphere plus attractive square well pair interactions.
16 pages, 7 figures. The following article has been accepted by The Journal of Chemical Physics. After it is published, it will be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0039524
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