Molecular dynamics study of a supercooled soft-sphere fluid

Results obtained from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations (performed on a 1000-particle system) for a soft-sphere fluid in the supercooled region are presented. The hydrodynamic length lt corresponding to the range of dynamical correlations in the transverse current is found to increase rapidly as the amount of supercooling increases. The shear viscosity and bulk viscosity are also found to increase rapidly in the supercooled region, due to the increasing contribution of the tails of the corresponding correlation functions. While the bond-orientational order parameters Q6 and Q8 do not increase significantly, the lifetimes of the corresponding time correlation functions also increase rapidly in the supercooled region.