Dynamics in colloidal liquids near a crossing of glass- and gel-transition lines.
Within the mode-coupling theory for ideal glass transitions, the mean-squared displacement and the correlation function for density fluctuations are evaluated for a colloidal liquid of particles interacting with a square-well potential for states near the crossing of the line for transitions to a gel with the line for transitions to a glass. It is demonstrated how the dynamics is ruled by the interplay of the mechanisms of arrest due to hard-core repulsion and due to attraction-induced bond formation as well as by a nearby higher-order glass-transition singularity. Application of the universal relaxation laws for the slow dynamics near glass-transition singularities explains the qualitative features of the calculated time dependence of the mean-squared displacement, which are in accord with the findings obtained in molecular-dynamics simulation studies by Zaccarelli et al. [Phys. Rev. E 66, 041402 (2002)]. Correlation functions found by photon-correlation spectroscopy in a micellar system by Mallamace et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5431 (2000)] can be interpreted qualitatively as a crossover from gel to glass dynamics.
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Physik Department, Technische Universität München, 85747 Garching, Germany.