2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Statistical Physics Study of Supercooled Colloidal Liquids and Colloidal Glass Transition
| Project/Area Number |
14540348
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
物性一般(含基礎論)
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| Research Institution | Tohoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
TOKUYAMA Michio Tohoku University, Institute of Fluid Science, Professor, 流体科学研究所, 教授 (40175477)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TERADA Yayoi Tohoku University, Institute of Fluid Science, Research Associate, 流体科学研究所, 助手 (20301814)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2002 – 2005
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| Keywords | Colloidal Suspensions / Glass Transition / Supercooled Liquid / Nonlinear Fluctuations / Logarithmic・Power-Law Decay / Universality・Similarity / Spatial Heterogeneities / Long-Lived Relaxation |
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| Research Abstract |
We have studied the colloidal glass transitions not only by constructing the theory but also by performing the extensive computer simulations and obtained the following important achievements.
1)In order to clarify how the hydrodynamic interactions between colloids play an important role near the glass transition, we have performed two types of computer simulations on the systems of hard spheres, the Brownian-dynamics simulation and the molecular-dynamics simulation. By analyzing the data from a unified point of view based on the mean-field theory proposed recently by Tokuyama, we have thus first shown that the glass transition can not occur without the hydrodynamic interactions.
2)We have numerically solved the nonlinear stochastic diffusion equation for the density fluctuations derived in 2001 by Tokuyama from a first principle and then shown that the long-lived spatial heterogeneities caused by the nonlinear density fluctuations near the glass transition are an important origin of a famous two-step relaxation.
3)Tokuyama has proposed the mean-field theory by deriving the nonlinear equation for the mean-square displacement from the nonlinear stochastic diffusion equation. It has been shown to be applicable not only for colloidal suspensions but also for glass-forming materials by analyzing several different experimental and simulation data. The theory thus predicts remarkable similarities between different glass transitions and proposes an approach quite different from the conventional ones to understand the glass transition, including a logarithmic decay and no divergence of any characteristic times.
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