Absence of fast precursor dynamics of low-density amorphous ice around its hypothetical glass transition temperature

Abstract

Elastic fixed window scans have been performed at the high-Q backscattering neutron scattering spectrometer IN13 (ILL) on low-density amorphous (LDA) ice between 2 K and up to 170 K, i.e., above the phase transformation to crystalline ice I_c. Within the experimental accuracy no anomaly of the Debye–Waller factor is found below the recrystallization temperature. The data rule out the existence of fast precursor processes as they have been predicted by the mode coupling theory of the glass transition and found in molecular glass formers.