Kinetic Theory of Slowly Relaxing Systems

斯坦福大学的汉斯·安德森得到了理论和计算化学项目颁发的奖项的支持，该项目致力于研究慢弛豫体系的动力学理论，其中玻璃和蛋白质是常见的例子。在NSF支持的以前的工作中，PI开发了一种形式上精确的液体动力学图解理论，从而得出了各种时间尺度上的有用的动力学图解。在目前的工作中，他正在扩展这种方法，以研究低于模式耦合理论临界温度的温度。在那个温度下，模耦合理论中出现的奇异性可能是理论的伪影，可能与真正的玻璃化转变无关。这项研究将揭示玻璃中发生的一种重要的相变，蛋白质是其中一个有趣的例子。预计它将增加可用于模拟复杂系统的技术，并可能开辟将系统行为视为生物细胞一样复杂的方法，从而对许多科学领域产生广泛影响。

Hans Andersen of Stanford University is supported by an award from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program to carry out research on the development of a kinetic theory for slowly relaxing systems of which glasses and proteins are common examples. In prior work supported by NSF, the PI developed a formally exact diagrammatic kinetic theory of liquids that led to a useful picture of dynamics on various time scales. In the current work, he is extending this method to look at temperatures below the critical temperature of mode coupling theory. The singularity which arises in mode coupling theory at that temperature might be an artifact of the theory and may have no relation to the true glass transition. This research will shed light on an important phase transition that occurs in glasses, of which proteins are an interesting example. It is expected to add to the body of techniques available for stimulating complex systems, and may open ways to treat the behavior of systems as complex as a biological cell, thus having a broad impact on a number of fields of science.