Computer simulations of supercooled liquids and glasses

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Abstract
After a brief introduction to the dynamics of supercooled liquids, we discuss some of the advantages and drawbacks of computer simulations of such systems. Subsequently we present the results of computer simulations in which the dynamics of a fragile glass former, a binary Lennard-Jones system, is compared to that of a strong glass former, SiO2. This comparison gives evidence that the reason for the different temperature dependences of these two types of glass former lies in the transport mechanism for the particles in the vicinity of Tc, the critical temperature of mode-coupling theory. Whereas that for the fragile glass former is described very well by the ideal version of mode-coupling theory, that for the strong glass former is dominated by activated processes. In the last part of the article we review some simulations of glass formers in which the dynamics below the glass transition temperature was investigated. We show that such simulations might help to establish a connection between systems with self-generated disorder (e.g. structural glasses) and quenched disorder (e.g. spin glasses).
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