Spatiotemporal intermittency and localized dynamic fluctuations upon approaching the glass transition

Abstract

We introduce a robust approach for characterizing spatially and temporally heterogeneous behavior within a system based on the evolution of dynamic fluctuations averaged over different space lengths and timescales. We apply it to investigate the dynamics in two canonical systems as the glass transition is approached: simulated Lennard-Jones liquids and experimental dense colloidal suspensions. In both cases the onset of glassiness is marked by spatially localized dynamic fluctuations originating in regions of correlated mobile particles. By removing the trivial system size dependence we show that the spatial heterogeneity of the dynamics extends to large length scales containing tens to hundreds of particles, corresponding to the timescale of maximally non-Gaussian dynamics.