Strongly correlating liquids and their isomorphs

Abstract

This paper summarizes the properties of strongly correlating liquids, i.e., liquids for which the virial/potential energy correlation coefficient is above 0.9 for equilibrium fluctuations in the NVT ensemble. The definition and properties of strongly correlating liquids' isomorphs are given, and various isomorph invariants are discussed. The cause of strong virial/potential energy correlations is also discussed, and it is argued that strongly correlating liquids are not merely to be thought of as approximate inverse power-law liquids. The experimental predictions for strongly correlating glass-forming liquids include: i) density scaling; ii) isochronal superposition; iii) that there is a single function of frequency from which all frequency-dependent viscoelastic response functions may be calculated; iv) that strongly correlating liquids are approximately single-parameter liquids with close to unity Prigogine–Defay ratio; v) that the fictive temperature initially decreases for an isobaric temperature up jump. The paper also briefly discusses the “isomorph filter”, which provides a necessary condition for universality of theories for the non-Arrhenius temperature dependence of the relaxation time.