Using Monte Carlo simulations we study the dynamics of three-dimensional Is
ing models with nearest-, next-nearest-, and four-spin (plaquette) interact
ions. During coarsening, such models develop growing energy barriers, which
leads to very slow dynamics at low temperature. As already reported, the m
odel with only the plaquette interaction exhibits some of the features char
acteristic of ordinary glasses: strong metastability of the supercooled liq
uid, a weak increase of the characteristic length under cooling, stretched-
exponential relaxation, and aging. The addition of two-spin interactions, i
n general, destroys such behavior: the liquid phase loses metastability and
the slow-dynamics regime terminates well below the melting transition, whi
ch is presumably related with a certain corner-rounding transition. However
, for a particular choice of interaction constants, when the ground state i
s strongly degenerate, our simulations suggest that the slow-dynamics regim
e extends up to the melting transition. The analysis of these models leads
us to the conjecture that in the four-spin Ising model domain walls lose th
eir tension at the glassy transition and that they are basically tensionles
s in the glassy phase.