Description of Research Area

The Origin and Role of Spatial Correlations of Anomalous Hydrodynamic Transport in Supercooled Liquids

Research Subject

In recent years, I have studied the nonlocal mesoscopic nature of anomalous hydrodynamic transport and its relation to the collective dynamics in supercooled liquids. A series of studies has revealed the spatio-temporal hierarchical structures of hydrodynamic transport itself, and the results of these studies should complement those of earlier efforts concerning the exploration of dynamic heterogeneity by using the four-point correlation function method. The length-scale-dependent anomalous hydrodynamic transport and the associated cooperativity strongly suggest the significance of some spatially correlated structure in the slow dynamics and raise two fundamental questions: "What is the role played by this spatial correlation in anomalous transport and the subsequent slow dynamics?" and "What is the underlying mechanism behind this correlation?". In this project, I will address these questions; after many trials (through numerical experiments, model analysis, phenomenology, etc.), I hope to gain a clear (and general, if so) physical picture of the glass transition.