Comparison of some recent Excitation Chain Arguments with the Random First Order Transition Theory of Supercooled Liquids and Experiment

Abstract

We compare a recent excitation chain argument for the glass transition with the earlier random first order transition theory. The key equation determining the activation barriers and size of cooperatively rearranging regions has the same scaling form in both approaches. The random first order transition theory unambiguously predicts the coefficients in the equation giving results that agree with experiment vis a vis the correlation of activation barriers with thermodynamics and that also agree with experimental determination of correlation lengths following the prescription of Berthier et al. The excitation chain approach, while containing more adjustable parameters accommodates those experimental findings only by using unphysical values for those adjustable parameters.