Quench, Equilibration, and Subaging in Structural Glasses

In the glassy state, all materials undergo a process of structural recovery as they age towards equilibrium. The resultant increase of relaxation times t(alpha) is frequently described with a sublinear power of the wait time t(w)(mu) with an apparent aging exponent mu. We show with molecular dynamics simulations of a Lennard-Jones glass former at various temperatures that the observed aging exponent can be strongly influenced by crossover effects from the freshly quenched state at short t(w) and into the equilibrated state at long t(w). The aging behavior on the molecular level is quantitatively reproduced by a coarse-grained continuous time random walk description over the entire range of temperatures and wait times. Our model glass always shows normal aging, t(alpha) similar to t(w), when the observation time window is no longer affected by crossover effects, in agreement with the well-known trap model of aging. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.025501