Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Supercooled: An Equilibrium, Melting-Based, Energy Distribution Approach For Describing The Phenomenology Of Metastable Liquids, Nicholas Bryan Weingartner

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The glass transition remains one of the great open problems of modern physics. This dissertation aims to increase understanding of this topic by studying the rich phenomenology of supercooled liquids, the metastable precursors to the glassy state. Principally, we aim to discover what underlying physics leads to the dramatic, non-Arrhenius increase of the viscosity and relaxation time of supercooled liquids, and what thermodynamic properties govern this physics. We propose a novel framework and associated viscosity function applicable to all supercooled liquids/glassy systems, and rigorously assess both the performance and implications of this model. We demonstrate that the theoretical framework uncovers …