Dynamics of supercooled liquids interacting with a repulsive Yukawa potential

The authors report molecular dynamics results for the single-particle diffusion in liquids where the interparticle interaction is a repulsive Yukawa potential U(r) varies as exp(- kappa r)/r. In supercooled liquids, atypical subdiffusive behaviour is observed in a range of times intermediate between the early-time ballistic and late-time diffusive regimes. This sub-diffusive regime is evidence for strongly correlated motion and increases in size as the glass transition is approached. Introduction of a viscous damping term to the equations of motion does not destroy this effect.