title: Structural relaxation of a gel modeled by three body interactions.
abstract: We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of a model gel whose interaction potential is obtained by modifying the three body Stillinger-Weber model potential for silicon. The modification reduces the average coordination number and suppresses the liquid-gas phase coexistence curve. The low density, low temperature equilibrium gel that can thus form exhibits interesting dynamical behavior, including compressed exponential relaxation of density correlations. We show that motion responsible for such relaxation has ballistic character, and arises from the motion of chain segments in the gel without the restructuring of the gel network.
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Sciences Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur Campus, Bangalore 560 064, India.
authors.forename: Shibu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Saw
authors.forename: Niels L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Ellegaard
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kob
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sastry