IOP Publishing, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 32(41), p. 324006
DOI: 10.1088/1751-8113/41/32/324006
Full text: Download
Transitions between metabasins in supercooled liquids seem to occur through rapid "democratic" collective particle rearrangements. Here we show that this apparent homogeneous particle motion is a direct consequence of dynamic facilitation. We do so by studying metabasin transitions in facilitated spin models and constrained lattice gases. We find that metabasin transitions occur through a sequence of locally facilitated events taking place over a relatively short time frame. When observed on small enough spatial windows these events appear sudden and homogeneous. Our results indicate that metabasin transitions are essentially "non-democratic" in origin and yet another manifestation of dynamical heterogeneity in glass formers. ; Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures