Metastable state dynamics and power law relaxation in a supercooled liquid- art. no. 011505

We consider glassy relaxation by using a model for supercooled liquid where the usual set of hydrodynamic variables is extended to include the presenc e of very slowly decaying defect densities. The long time limit of the dens ity correlation function, the nonergodicity parameter, is studied in the vi cinity of the dynamic transition point, and scaling exponents with respect to the distance from the critical point are obtained. In addition to the us ual square root cusp, we also see a linear dependence on distance from tran sition with respect to the metastability parameters. We analyze the power l aw relaxation of the density correlation function at the initial stage of t he dynamics, and obtain an exponent dependent on temperature. Results are c ompared with data obtained from light scattering experiments.