Slow dynamics and aging in a nonrandomly frustrated spin system

A simple, nondisordered spin model has been studied in an effort to understand the origin of the precipitous slowing down of dynamics observed in supercooled liquids approaching the glass transition. A combination of Monte Carlo simulations and exact calculations indicates that this model exhibits an entropy-vanishing transition accompanied by a rapid divergence of time scales. Measurements of various correlation functions show that the system displays a hierarchy of time scales associated with different degrees of freedom. Extended structures, arising from the frustration in the system, are identified as the source of the slow dynamics. In the simulations, the system falls out of equilibrium at a temperature T_g higher than the entropy-vanishing transition temperature and the dynamics below T_g exhibits aging as distinct from coarsening. The cooling rate dependence of the energy is also consistent with the usual glass formation scenario.