Subdiffusion and intermittent dynamic fluctuations in the aging regime of concentrated hard spheres

J.H.M. al Masri, L. Berthier, L. Cipelletti

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We study the nonequilibrium aging dynamics in a system of quasihard spheres at large density by means of computer simulations. We find that, after a sudden quench to large density, the relaxation time initially increases exponentially with the age of the system. After a surprisingly large crossover time, the system enters the asymptotic aging regime characterized by a nearly linear increase in the relaxation time with age. In this aging regime, single-particle motion is strongly non-Fickian, with a mean-squared displacement increasing subdiffusively, associated with broad non-Gaussian tails in the distribution of particle displacements. We find that the system ages through temporally intermittent relaxation events, and a detailed finite-size analysis of these collective dynamic fluctuations reveals that these events are not spanning the entire system, but remain spatially localized.
Original languageEnglish
Article number031503
Number of pages10
JournalPhysical Review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics
Volume82
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

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