Universal sound absorption in low-temperature glasses

Abstract

Phenomenologically assuming a sharp decrease of shear relaxation time for large wavevector $k>k_{\xi }$ density modes (where $k_{\xi }$ is of order of inverse of several interatomic distances $a$), I develop a general elasto-hydrodynamic theory describing the low-energy excitations of glassy and amorphous solids, which are responsible for anomalous specific heat and thermal conductivity. The theory explains the origin of collective two-level states and Boson peak. The ratio of the wavelength of the phonon, $\lambda$, to its mean free path, $l$, - universal property of sound absorption in glasses - is derived in this theory to be $\lambda /l=(2/3)(c_t/c_l{)}^2(k_{\xi }a{)}^3$, where $c_t$ and $c_l$ are transverse and longitudinal sound velocities correspondingly.

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References in corpus (4)

• Harmonic Vibrational Excitations in Disordered Solids and the "Boson Peak"
• The Intrinsic Quantum Excitations of Low Temperature Glasses
• Observation of the onset of strong scattering on high frequency acoustic phonons in densified silica glass
• The Dynamics of Supercooled Silica: Acoustic modes and Boson peak

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Universal Sound Absorption in Amorphous Solids: A Theory of Elastically Coupled Generic Blocks
• Nonuniversality and strongly interacting two-level systems in glasses at low temperatures
• Microstructure dependence of low-temperature elastic properties in amorphous diamond-like carbon films
• Vibrational density of states of amorphous solids with long-ranged power-law correlated disorder in elasticity
• A fermion phenomenology of low-temperature strongly-noncrystalline solids
• Thermal cycling -- evidence for a generalized tunneling model and a tool to distinguish noise sources in quantum circuits
• Universal Sound Attenuation in Amorphous Solids at Low-Temperatures