Quench echoes

OCT 01, 1983

In spite of their seemingly random motion, atoms in computer‐simulated glasses “remember” the time interval between a pair of freezings, simplifying certain many‐body calculations.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2915313

Sidney R. Nagel

Gary S. Grest

Aneesur Rahman

When we try to understand atomic motion in amorphous solids, we face a complicated problem in classical mechanics. What is the relationship between the motion of one atom and that of every other? Without a periodic crystal lattice to simplify the calculations, we must look for other properties that make things tractable. A phenomenon recently observed in computer models of many‐body systems may give us such a simplification, at least in the calculation of a number of dynamical properties of glassy solids. This phenomenon, the “quench echo,” appears as a brief but dramatic drop in the temperature of a theoretical solid sometime after it has experienced two abrupt quenches of its kinetic energy, as we will see later in detail.

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More about the authors

Sidney R. Nagel, University of Chicago.

Gary S. Grest, Exxon's Corporate Research Science Laboratory, Linden, New Jersey.

Aneesur Rahman, Argonne National Laboratory.