Suspensions of repulsive colloidal particles near the glass transition: Time and frequency domain descriptions

Abstract

We study the relaxation of both spontaneous and shear-induced fluctuations in suspensions of charged-stabilized colloidal particles near the glass transition by dynamic light scattering and rheology. Both observations are here understood in terms of a common structural relaxation process under a hard-sphere mode-coupling formalism. For ergodic systems, we show that the descriptions of the relaxation dynamics in time and frequency domains are governed by a common set of dynamic parameters. It is further shown that the microscopic ergodicity break-up induces the emergence of the macroscopic glass elasticity.