Ten themes of viscous liquid dynamics

Abstract

Ten ‘themes’ of viscous liquid physics are discussed with a focus on how they point toa general description of equilibrium viscous liquid dynamics (i.e., fluctuations)at a given temperature. This description is based on standard time-dependentGinzburg–Landau equations for the density fields, stress tensor fields, potential energydensity field, and fields quantifying molecular orientations. One characteristicaspect of the theory is that density has the appearance of a non-conserved field.Another characteristic feature is the long-wavelength dominance of the dynamics,which not only simplifies the theory by allowing for an ultra-local Hamiltonian(free energy), but also explains the observed general independence of chemistry.Whereas there are no long-ranged static (i.e., equal-time) correlations in the model,there are important long-ranged dynamic correlations on the alpha timescale.