Fluctuations and Transport in Dense Liquids

该研究涉及致密流体的非平衡特性研究，并继续PI先前开展的工作。要考虑的问题有两类：1)粘性流体的动力学性质及其在玻璃态的冻结。重点是研究在真正的玻璃形成流体中很重要的自由度松弛的减缓，如取向相关和成分紊乱。2)在分子长度尺度上以有序为特征的非平衡相变，如剪切诱导的熔化和冻结。本研究的一个重要目标是在建立描述这些现象的一般框架方面取得一些进展。提出了冻结平衡理论的推广，用于描述不连续的非平衡相变。

The research concerns the study of nonequilibrium properties of dense fluids and continues previous work carried out by the PI. The problems to be considered are of two types: 1) dynamical properties of viscous fluids and their freezing in a glassy state. Emphasis is placed on the study of the slowing down of the relaxation of degrees of freedom that are important in real glass-forming fluids, such as orientational correlations and compositional disorder. 2) Nonequilibrium phase transitions to and from states characterized by ordering on molecular length scales, such as shear induced melting and freezing. An important objective of this study is to make some progress toward establishing a general framework for the description of these phenomena. A generalization of the equilibrium theory of freezing is proposed to describe discontinuous nonequilibrium phase transition.