Our understanding of the mechanism by which the viscosity of supercooled liquids increase by many decades requires us to discriminate apparently incompatible theoretical approaches which provide equally good descriptions of experimental data: which theory should we believe? To answer this question, the challenge lies in equilibrating samples of sufficiently high viscosity that to probe quantities that enable discrimination. Recently, considerable progress has been in both experiments and simulation [1]. Much of these new data supports theories which invoke a thermodynamic origin of the glass transition - in contrast to a predominately dynamic origin [2,3].<br/><br/>Nevertheless, plenty of compelling evidence in support of dynamic facilitation (where the glass transition is driven by a dynamical phase transition) exists [4], which can be accessed in experiments [5]. Here we obtain very deeply supercooled configurations which reveal the dynamical phase transition of facilitation. We find this transition has a lower temperature bound, which we interpret as a critical point which urns out to lie at the Kauzmann temperature, where a thermodynamic transition is expected. Our findings may lead to a path to reconcile the competing thermodynamic and dynamic interpretations of the glass transition [6].

Glass Transition: Can new data shed light on which Interpretation we should believe?

2019 Spring National Meeting

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