Jeetain Mittal, Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, Jeffrey R. Errington, University at Buffalo, Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering, 509 Furnas Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, and Thomas M. Truskett, Chemical Engineering and Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, C0400, Austin, TX 78712.
Thermodynamic, structural, and kinetic properties of liquids change significantly upon supercooling toward the glass transition. Although the relationships between thermodynamics and structure are fairly well understood, discovering and elucidating clear connections of these quantities to dynamics remains one of the outstanding challenges in the study of condensed phase systems. In this talk, we discuss recent results from molecular simulations using a wide variety of models that demonstrate robust links exist between familiar structural measures (i.e., the pair correlation function), associated thermodynamic quantities, and the diffusivities of supercooled liquids.