| The breakdown of the shear modulus at the glass transition (2002) | |||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||
| The glass transition is described in terms of thermally activated local structural rearrangements, the secondary relaxations of the glass phase. The interaction between these secondary relaxations leads to a much faster and much more dramatic breakdown of the shear modulus than without interaction, thus creating the impression of a separate primary process which in reality does not exist. The model gives a new view on the fragility and the stretching, two puzzling features of the glass transition.. Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, 13 references; version 2 changed in title, reduced claims and modified arguments according to referee criticque from PRL. One equation was omitted; otherwise equations are unchanged Paper rejected by PRL; Version 3 accepted as part of the proceedings Workshop Disordered Solids in Andalo 2003 to appear in Phil. Mag. B | |||||||||
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