The glass transition temperature (Tg) in water is still uncertain, with conflicting values reported in the literature. As with other hyperquenched glasses, water exhibits a large relaxation exotherm on reheating at the normal rate of 10 kelvin (K) per minute. This release of heat indicates the transformation of a high enthalpy state to a lower one found in slow-cooled glasses. When the exotherm temperature is scaled by Tg, the good glass-formers show a common pattern. However, for hyperquenched water, when this analysis is performed using the commonly accepted Tg = 136 K, its behavior appears completely different, but this should not be the case because enthalpy relaxation is fundamental to the calorimetric glass transition. With Tg = 165 +/- 5 K, normal behavior is restored in comparison with other hyperquenched glasses and with the binary solution behavior of network-former systems (H2O, ZnCl2, or BeF2 plus a second component). This revised value has relevance to the understanding of water- biomolecule interactions.

We describe a combination of laboratory and simulation studies that give quantitative information on the energy landscape for glass-forming liquids. Both types of study focus on the idea of suddenly extracting the thermal energy, so that the system obtained for subsequent study has the structure, and hence potential energy, of a liquid at a much higher temperature than the normal glass temperature T g. One type of study gives information on the energy that can be trapped in experimental glasses by hyperquenching, relative to the normal glass, and on the magnitude of barriers separating basins of attraction on the landscape. Stepwise annealing studies also give information on the matter of energy heterogeneity and the question of 'nanogranularity' in liquids near T g. The other type of study gives information on the vibrational properties of a system confined to a given basin, and particularly on how that vibrational structure changes with the state of configurational excitation of the liquid. A feature in the low frequency ('boson peak') region of the density of vibrational states of the normal glass becomes much stronger in the hyperquenched glass. Qualitatively similar observations are made on heating fragile glass-formers into the supercooled and stable liquid states. The vibrational dynamics findings are supported and elucidated by constant pressure molecular dynamics/normal mode MD/NM simulations/analysis of the densities of states of different inherent structures of a model fragile liquid (orthoterphenyl (OTP) in the Lewis-Wahnstrom approximation). These show that, when the temperature is raised at constant pressure, the total density of states changes in a manner that can be well represented by a two-Gaussian 'excitation across the centroid', leaving a third and major Gaussian component unchanging. The low frequency Gaussian component, which grows with increasing temperature, has a constant peak

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In pursuit of understanding of the paradoxical success of the Adam-Gibbs equation in both experiment and computer simulation studies, we examine the relation between liquid behavior at constant pressure and constant volume and compare the inherent structures excitation profiles for the two cases. This allows us to extend qualitatively the recent correlation of kinetic and thermodynamic measures of fragility to constant volume systems. The decreased fragility at constant volume is understood in terms of the relation C p >C c(cp) > C c(cv) > C v . In the process, we find a parallel between the range of volumes, relative to the total excess volume, that are explored in the first few orders of magnitude of relaxation time increase, and the range of amorphous state inherent structure energies, relative to the total range, that are explored in ergodic computer simulations, which also cover only this limited range of relaxation time change. The question of whether or not fragile behavior is determined in the configurational or vibrational manifold of states is left unanswered in this work. However, the approximate proportionality of the configurational and total excess entropies that is needed to interpret the success of the Adam Gibbs equation (which has been questioned by other authors) is confirmed within the needed limits, using data from three different types of investigation: experiments (on Se), simulation (of water in the SPC-E model), and analytical models of both defect crystals and configurationally excited liquids. Some consequences of the abrupt increases in vibrational heat capacity at T g implied by this proportionality, are discussed.

With an interest in obtaining data on laboratory glass samples to compare with simulated glasses produced by molecular dynamics computer simulations, we have explored, using calorimetric techniques, the fictive temperatures that can be obtained using different laboratory quenching methods. We describe some useful analytical methods for characterizing quenched samples and, in the process, demonstrate a modified graphical treatment of DSC data that directly yields the m fragility index ("steepness" index) and permits the assembly of enthalpy relaxation data on different liquids in a fragility plot. Using these methods, we provide evidence for the trapping of high-T g molecular glasses at fictive temperatures up to 1.16T g and show that fictive temperatures up to and even beyond the crossover temperature for fragile glass formers should be possible using refined electrospray and fiber-spinning techniques. We discuss the relation of the low-T/T g enthalpy relaxation, found in all hyperquenched glasses, to topographic features of the energy landscape for glassforming liquids.