String Model Predicts Relaxation in Sheared Glass-Forming Liquids
Abstract
Understanding how structural relaxation evolves from equilibrium to nonequilibrium conditions remains a central problem in glass physics. Using simulations of model glass formers under steady shear, we show that the String Model, which links stringlike cooperative rearrangements to relaxation in equilibrium glass-forming liquids, predicts the structural relaxation time across the full range of temperatures and shear rates investigated without additional nonequilibrium fitting parameters, when combined with a shear-dependent effective temperature that is captured by a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation. These results indicate that equilibrium and nonequilibrium relaxation are governed by the same underlying cooperative mechanism, but they occur under different effective thermodynamic conditions under steady shear. More broadly, our study provides a unified microscopic description of thermal and mechanically driven dynamics in glass-forming liquids.
Related
- Universal link between structural relaxation and self-diffusion in simple supercooled liquids
- Anisotropic medium-range order uncovers dynamic crossovers in glass-forming liquids
- Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Glass-Forming Liquids under Continuous Cooling: Microscopic Inner Clocks, Fictive Temperatures, and Kauzmann Diagrams
- Near-Surface Concentration Profile of Sheared Semidilute Polymer Solutions
- Translational and rotational irreversibility in cyclically sheared colloidal suspensions
BibTeX
@misc{wang2026string,
title = {{String Model Predicts Relaxation in Sheared Glass-Forming Liquids}},
author = {Zi-Long Wang and Qi-Lu Yuan and Yun-Jiang Wang and Jack F. Douglas and Matteo Baggioli and Zhao-Yan Sun and Wen-Sheng Xu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.16460},
eprint = {2607.16460},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16460},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - String Model Predicts Relaxation in Sheared Glass-Forming Liquids
AU - Zi-Long Wang
AU - Qi-Lu Yuan
AU - Yun-Jiang Wang
AU - Jack F. Douglas
AU - Matteo Baggioli
AU - Zhao-Yan Sun
AU - Wen-Sheng Xu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.16460
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16460
AB - Understanding how structural relaxation evolves from equilibrium to nonequilibrium conditions remains a central problem in glass physics. Using simulations of model glass formers under steady shear, we show that the String Model, which links stringlike cooperative rearrangements to relaxation in equilibrium glass-forming liquids, predicts the structural relaxation time across the full range of temperatures and shear rates investigated without additional nonequilibrium fitting parameters, when combined with a shear-dependent effective temperature that is captured by a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation. These results indicate that equilibrium and nonequilibrium relaxation are governed by the same underlying cooperative mechanism, but they occur under different effective thermodynamic conditions under steady shear. More broadly, our study provides a unified microscopic description of thermal and mechanically driven dynamics in glass-forming liquids.
ER -