Microscopic Theory of a Fluctuation-Induced Dynamical Crossover in Supercooled Liquids

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Main Authors: Laudicina, Corentin C. L., Janssen, Liesbeth M. C., Szamel, Grzegorz
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Laudicina, Corentin C. L.
Janssen, Liesbeth M. C.
Szamel, Grzegorz
author_facet Laudicina, Corentin C. L.
Janssen, Liesbeth M. C.
Szamel, Grzegorz
contents Mean-field theories of the glass transition predict a phase transition to a dynamically arrested state, yet no such transition is observed in experiments or simulations of finite-dimensional systems. We resolve this long-standing discrepancy by incorporating critical dynamical fluctuations into a microscopic mode-coupling framework. We show that these fluctuations round off the mean-field singularity and restore ergodicity at all finite densities (or temperatures) without invoking activated dynamics or facilitation. The resulting effective theory describes the order parameter as a stochastic process with self-induced, annealed disorder, determined self-consistently at the mean-field level. In the $β$-relaxation regime it reduces to stochastic beta-relaxation theory, thereby unifying mode-coupling and replica-based approaches beyond mean-field. All parameters of the stochastic $β$-relaxation theory are fixed by the static structure, enabling parameter-free predictions that extend mean-field theory into finite dimensions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_13082
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Microscopic Theory of a Fluctuation-Induced Dynamical Crossover in Supercooled Liquids
Laudicina, Corentin C. L.
Janssen, Liesbeth M. C.
Szamel, Grzegorz
Soft Condensed Matter
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Statistical Mechanics
Chemical Physics
Mean-field theories of the glass transition predict a phase transition to a dynamically arrested state, yet no such transition is observed in experiments or simulations of finite-dimensional systems. We resolve this long-standing discrepancy by incorporating critical dynamical fluctuations into a microscopic mode-coupling framework. We show that these fluctuations round off the mean-field singularity and restore ergodicity at all finite densities (or temperatures) without invoking activated dynamics or facilitation. The resulting effective theory describes the order parameter as a stochastic process with self-induced, annealed disorder, determined self-consistently at the mean-field level. In the $β$-relaxation regime it reduces to stochastic beta-relaxation theory, thereby unifying mode-coupling and replica-based approaches beyond mean-field. All parameters of the stochastic $β$-relaxation theory are fixed by the static structure, enabling parameter-free predictions that extend mean-field theory into finite dimensions.
title Microscopic Theory of a Fluctuation-Induced Dynamical Crossover in Supercooled Liquids
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Statistical Mechanics
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13082