Structural and dynamical heterogeneities in two-dimensional melting

Using molecular-dynamics simulation, we study structural and dynamical heterogeneities at melting in two-dimensional one-component systems with 36000 particles. Between crystal and liquid we find intermediate hexatic states, where the density fluctuations are enhanced at small wave number k as well as those of the sixfold orientational order parameter. Their structure factors both grow up to the smallest wave number equal to the inverse system length. The intermediate scattering function of the density S( k, t) is found to relax exponentially with decay rate Gamma(k) alpha k(z) with z similar to 2.6 at small k in the hexatic phase. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2009