Diffusion and rheology in a model of glassy materials

We study self-diffusion within a simple hopping model for glassy materials. (The model is Bouchaud's model of glasses (J.-P. Bouchaud, J. Phys. I France 2, 1705 (1992)), as extended to describe rheological properties (P. Sollich, F. Lequeux, P. Hébraud, M.E. Cates, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2020 (1997)).) We investigate the breakdown, near the glass transition, of the (generalized) Stokes-Einstein relation between self-diffusion of a tracer particle and the (frequency-dependent) viscosity of the system as a whole. This stems from the presence of a broad distribution of relaxation times of which different moments control diffusion and rheology. We also investigate the effect of flow (oscillatory shear) on self-diffusion and show that this causes a finite diffusivity in the temperature regime below the glass transition (where this was previously zero). At higher temperatures the diffusivity is enhanced by a power law frequency dependence that also characterises the rheological response. The relevance of these findings to soft glassy materials (foams, emulsions etc.) as well as to conventional glass-forming liquids is discussed.