Molecular hydrodynamic theory of supercooled liquids and colloidal suspensions under shear.
We extend the conventional mode-coupling theory of supercooled liquids to systems under stationary shear flow. Starting from generalized fluctuating hydrodynamics, a nonlinear equation for the intermediate scattering function is constructed. We evaluate the solution numerically for a model of a two-dimensional colloidal suspension and find that the structural relaxation time decreases as gamma;(-nu) with an exponent nu</=1, where gamma; is the shear rate. The results are in qualitative agreement with recent molecular dynamics simulations. We discuss the physical implications of the results.
Miyazaki
Kunimasa
K
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. miyazaki@fas.harvard.edu
Reichman
David R
DR