Dynamics of supercooled liquids and understanding the glass transition

Abstract

The self-consistent mode coupling theory of glass transition is briefly reviewed. The existance of a temperature Tc, higher than the usual calorimetric glass transition temperature, across which the dynamics of the fluid becomes quite different are indicated through different experimental results. Above Tc the viscosity tends to diverge with a power law while for lower temperature this sharp transition is cutoff. Such changes in the transport properties can be understood from the self-consistent mode coupling theory. The relaxation functions predicted by the mode-coupling theory over different time scales are indicated. The models with proper wave-vector dependence are also discussed.