Spectral Shape of Relaxations in Silica Glass

Precise low-frequency light scattering experiments on silica glass are presented, covering a broad temperature and frequency range ( 9 GHz<nu<2 THz). The spectra show a power-law low-frequency wing of the relaxational part of the spectrum with an exponent alpha proportional to temperature in the range 30<T<200 K. A comparison of our results with those from acoustic attenuation experiments performed at different frequencies shows that this power-law behavior rather well describes relaxations in silica over 9 orders of magnitude in frequency. These findings can be explained by a model of thermally activated transitions in double well potentials.