Slow dynamics in glycerol: collective de gennes narrowing and independent angstrom motion

The slow dynamics of microscopic density correlations in supercooled glycerol was studied by time-domain interferometry using ⁵⁷Fe-nuclear resonant scattering gamma rays of synchrotron radiation. The dependence of the relaxation time at 250 K on the momentum transfer q is maximum near the first peak of the static structure factor S(q) at q ∼ 15 nm ⁻¹. The q-dependent behavior of the relaxation time known as de Gennes narrowing was confirmed in glycerol. Conversely, de Gennes narrowing around the second and third peaks of S(q) at q ∼ 26 nm ⁻¹ and 54 nm ⁻¹ was not detected. The q dependence of the relaxation time was found to follow a power-law equation with power-law index of 1.9(2) in the q region well above the first peak of S(q) up to ∼ 60 nm ⁻¹, which corresponds to angstrom scale, within experimental error. This suggests that in the angstrom-scale dynamics of supercooled glycerol, independent motions dominate over collective motion.