Structural origin of relaxation in dense colloidal suspensions.

ABSTRACT: Amorphous solids relax via slow molecular rearrangement induced by thermal fluctuations or applied stress. Microscopic structural signatures predicting these structural relaxations have been long searched for but have so far only been found in dynamic quantities such as vibrational quasi-localized soft modes or with structurally trained neural networks. A physically meaningful structural quantity remains elusive. Here, we introduce a structural order parameter derived from the mean-field caging potential experienced by the particles due to their neighbors, which reliably predicts the occurrence of structural relaxations. The structural parameter, derived from density functional theory, provides a measure of susceptibility to particle rearrangements that can effectively identify weak or def

SUBMITTER: Sahu R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11494359 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature