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Updated: Dec 24, 2025

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Cooperative strings and glassy dynamics in various confined geometries
Maxence Arutkin1,2, Elie Raphaël2, James A Forrest1,2,3
1Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline St N, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 2Y5.
Abstract:
Previously, we developed a minimal model based on random cooperative strings for the relaxation of supercooled liquids in the bulk and near free interfaces, and we recovered some key experimental observations. In this article, after recalling the main ingredients of the cooperative string model, we study the effective glass transition and surface mobility of various experimentally relevant confined geometries: freestanding films, supported films, spherical particles, and cylindrical particles, with free interfaces and/or passive substrates. Finally, by canceling and restarting any cooperative-chain realization reaching the boundary with a smaller number of steps than the bulk cooperativity, we account for a purely attractive substrate, and explore the impact of the latter in the previous geometries.
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