Relaxation functions and dynamical heterogeneities in a model of chemical gel interfering with glass transition

Abstract

We investigate the heterogeneous dynamics in a model, where chemical gelation and glass transition interplay, focusing on the dynamical susceptibility. Two independent mechanisms give raise to the correlations, which are manifested in the dynamical susceptibility: one is related to the presence of permanent clusters, while the other is due to the increase of particle crowding as the glass transition is approached. The superposition of these two mechanisms originates a variety of different behaviours. We show that these two mechanisms can be unentangled considering the wave vector dependence of the dynamical susceptibility.