MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY OF LONG-LIVED STRUCTURES IN A FRAGILE GLASS-FORMING LIQUID

We present molecular-dynamics results for a two-component, two-dimensi onal Lennard-Jones supercooled liquid near the glass transition. We fi nd that the supercooled liquid is spatially heterogeneous and that the re are long-lived clusters whose size distribution satisfies a scaling relation up to a cutoff. The similarity of several properties of the supercooled liquid to those of a mean-field glass-forming fluid near t he spinodal suggests that the glass transition in the supercooled liqu id is associated with an underlying thermodynamic instability.