Low frequency Raman spectroscopy of supercooled fragile liquids analyzed with schematic mode coupling models

Abstract

Recent experimental studies of the glass transition of molecular liquids have exploited light scattering techniques in order to support the dynamical model proposed by the mode coupling theory. In the framework of the dipole-induced-dipole (DID) formalism and the Stephen’s approximation, we have checked this theory with several memory functions in the microscopic region, where phononlike excitations dominate, i.e., in the frequency window of 5–130 cm−1 accessible by a classical Raman spectrometer. The fitting procedure compares the experimental susceptibility spectra of one of the simplest fragile molecular liquid, m-toluidine, to the theoretical ones and estimates, in each case, the T dependence of the different control parameters as well as the crossing point of the transition line of type B. The agreement observed for spectra from a temperatures above the melting point down to the glass transition temperature Tg suggests, on the one hand, that information about the dynamical behavior of the supercooled liquid are contained in this frequency region and, on the other hand, that vibrational contributions are incorporated in this formalism, independently of the form of the relaxation kernel. Finally, the two-peak shape in the microscopic range of the susceptibility spectra is related to the relaxation of a linear combination of the Fourier components of the two density correlators.