Memory and chaos in the aging of a polymer glass
Abstract
Low frequency dielectric measurements on PMMA show that cooling and heating the sample at constant rate(reference curve) gives an hysteretic dependence of the dielectric evolution on temperature. A temporary stop of cooling produces a downward relaxation of the dielectric constant. Two main features are observed i) when cooling is resumed the dielectric constant goes back to the cooling branch of the reference curve (Chaos) ii) upon reheating the dielectric constant reminds the aging history (Memory). The analogies and differences with similar experiments done in spin glasses are discussed. These results have strong implications on the construction of a free energy landscape.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: