Purely dynamical signature of the orientational glass transition

Abstract

The dynamics of the freezing transition of the rotator phase crystal of ethanol into its orientational glass phase is monitored by measurements of molecular rotational components in the quasielastic neutron scattering spectrum. We demonstrate that phenomena observed at pico- and nanosecond scales can be mapped onto those shown by a model of infinitely thin hard needles rotating around body-centered-cubic lattice positions. As the model glass transition is of purely dynamical origin, our findings support the idea that the glass transition is purely dynamical and not associated with any thermodynamic phase transition.