Short-wavelength collective modes in a binary hard-sphere mixture

Abstract

We use hard-sphere generalized hydrodynamic equations to discuss the extended hydrodynamic modes of a binary mixture. The theory presented here is analytic and it provides us with a simple description of the collective excitations of a dense binary mixture at molecular length scales. The behavior we predict is in qualitative agreement with molecular-dynamics results for soft-sphere mixtures. This study provides some insight into the role of compositional disorder in forming glassy configurations.