Discovery of dynamical heterogeneity in a supercooled magnetic monopole fluid
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Date
2026-06-05
Authors
Dasini, Jahnatta
Carroll, Chaia
Murphy, Jack
Dawson, Catherine
Takahashi, Hiroto
Sharma, Sudarshan
Jerzembeck, Fabian
Blundell, Stephen J.
Luke, Graeme M.
Davis, J. C.Séamus
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published Version
Abstract
Dynamical heterogeneity, in which transitory local fuctuations occur in the conformation and dynamics of constituent particles, is widely hypothesized to be essential to the evolution of supercooled liquids into the structural glass state. Yet its microscopic spatiotemporal phenomenology is challenging to detect directly in molecular glass forming liquids. Because recent theoretical advances predict that corresponding dynamical heterogeneity could occur in supercooled magnetic monopole fuids (Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 112, 8549 (2015)), we searched for such phenomena in Dy2Ti2O7. By measuring its microsecond-resolved spontaneous magnetization fuctuations M(t, T ) we detected a sharp bifurcation in monopole noise characteristics below ≈ 1,500 mK, with the appearance of powerful spontaneous monopole current bursts. Tis intense dynamics emerges upon entering the supercooled monopole fuid regime, reaches maximum strength near ≈ 750 mK and then collapses along with coincident loss of ergodicity approaching g ≈ 250 mK. Moreover, when the four-point dynamical susceptibility χ4(τ, T )is determined directly from temperature dependence of correlations in M(t, T ), it evolves as predicted when dynamical heterogeneity is present, revealing its simultaneously and rapidly escalating length and time scales, ξ(T ) and τ4(T ). Tis overall phenomenology greatly expands our empirical knowledge of supercooled monopole fuids and, more generally, demonstrates techniques for detection of the time sequence, magnitude, statistics, and correlations of dynamical heterogeneity, access to which may greatly accelerate fundamental vitrifcation studies.
Description
Keywords
Dynamical heterogeneity , Emergent magnetic monopoles , Spin-ice , Supercooled liquids , Vitrification , [Physics]
Citation
Dasini, J, Carroll, C, Murphy, J, Dawson, C, Takahashi, H, Sharma, S, Jerzembeck, F, Blundell, S J, Luke, G M, Davis, J C S & Ward, J 2026, 'Discovery of dynamical heterogeneity in a supercooled magnetic monopole fluid', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 123, no. 23, e2528457123, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2528457123