{"record":{"author":{"account_ref":null,"orcid":null},"builds_on":[],"content_schema":"pubphys.content.revision/1","content_sha256":"4f9d0bdc33f3c5af98462e42b78d2476af600d9b1f91ec312ccc732fe6d9e76a","created":"2026-10-03T07:17:57Z","files":[],"origin":{"assisted_by":[],"kind":"seed"},"parents":["5475cf5dc5b1a72283d26dc95dc6e00d7ea4e00096a7c6492e409a1816eeb011"],"salt":"d3bcc08d766037f73fe6a8ddfcab438605d3b684a6c0b2f91f6306dffecb37d1","schema":"pubphys.record/2","site":"pubphys.com","target":null,"type":"revision"},"content":{"answer_type":"mechanism","assisted_by":[],"external_id":"bio.glass-transition.origin-of-slowdown","kind":"phenomenon","literature_status":"contested","n":"1","parents":[],"plain":"As a glass-forming liquid is cooled, the time its molecules take to rearrange grows by about 14 powers of ten over a narrow temperature range, much faster than the simple Arrhenius law (a fixed energy barrier) predicts. Which microscopic mechanism produces this growth is unknown.","posed_since":"","precise":"In molecular glass formers the structural relaxation time $\\tau_\\alpha(T)$ grows from about $1e-12\\ \\mathrm{s}$ in the high-temperature liquid to about $1e2\\ \\mathrm{s}$ at $T_g$, with an effective activation energy that increases on cooling; model liquids (Kob-Andersen Lennard-Jones mixture, polydisperse soft spheres) reproduce the onset of this growth. Competing explanations include random first-order transition theory (entropy-driven cooperative rearrangements), dynamic facilitation (kinetically constrained localized excitations) and elastic or frustration-based models. An answer is a theory that predicts $\\tau_\\alpha(T)$ and the associated growing length scales from the interaction potential and is singled out against the alternatives by equilibrium simulations near and below the experimental $T_g$. This is the root question of the topic; its working content is split into the sharper problems linked to it.","problem_ref":null,"references":"","settled_by":"A theory whose quantitative predictions for $\\tau_{\\alpha}(T)$, $\\xi(T)$ and their relation are confirmed, and those of rival theories refuted, in swap-Monte-Carlo-equilibrated simulations below the experimental $T_{g}$.","status_note":"Swap Monte Carlo has equilibrated model liquids below the experimental $T_{g}$ since about 2017, but as of 2026 no test has eliminated the main competing theories.","title":"What causes the super-Arrhenius slowdown of supercooled liquids","topic_ref":"b6cec0edf29a3e5b5b7b70395d6ca2460f15dfb7644125d881ab5595366caa14"},"attested":{"attestation":{"batch":null,"client_id":null,"id_token_sha256":null,"kind":"platform"},"record_hash":"60848fcc6e7dd814281e81cd02da7522c13d62ffd19f44653a61c8b90744fb32","schema":"pubphys.attested/1"},"envelope":{"attested_hash":"c59d3e5363bd4cee0360be885351505aba2dbb6ca0cba62e17b1e18b9ae41ef3","platform_signature":{"key_id":"c6afc19b31429869751f06879c75cd64ea92654423d15b44be775bf1310a60da","sig":"MJ6WyCVg-HDIM24XBRRN-0Zvy59v9cZrK0VAt1t4tgHgkxVqJrkLLthJtDlL2MRS7xdyCMCiuBvgTadF4uIwBA"},"schema":"pubphys.envelope/1"},"record_hash":"60848fcc6e7dd814281e81cd02da7522c13d62ffd19f44653a61c8b90744fb32","leaf_index":779}