Anisotropic spatially heterogeneous dynamics in a model glass-forming binary mixture

Abstract

We calculated a four-point correlation function G_4(k,r;t) and the corresponding structure factor S_4(k,q;t) for a model glass-forming binary mixture. These functions measure the spatial correlations of the relaxation of different particles. We found that these four-point functions are anisotropic and depend on the angle between vectors k and r (or q). The anisotropy is the strongest for times somewhat longer than the beta relaxation time but it is quite pronounced even for times comparable to the alpha relaxation time, tau_alpha. At the lowest temperatures S_4(k,q;tau_alpha) is strongly anisotropic even for the smallest wavevector q accessible in our simulation.