We examine the structural relaxation of glassy materials at finite temperatures, considering the effect of activated rearrangements and long-range elastic interactions. Our three-dimensional mesoscopic relaxation model shows how the displacements induced by localized relaxation events can result in faster-than-exponential relaxation. Thermal activation allows for local rearrangements, which generate elastic responses and possibly cascades of new relaxation events. To study the interplay between these elastically dominated and thermally dominated dynamics, we introduce tracer particles that follow the displacement field induced by the local relaxation events, and we also incorporate Brownian motion. Our results reveal that the dynamic exponents and shape parameter of the dynamical structure factor depend on this competition and display a crossover from faster-than-exponential to exponential relaxation as temperature increases, consistent with recent observations in metallic glasses. Additionally, we find the distribution of waiting times between activations to be broadly distributed at low temperatures, providing a measure of dynamical heterogeneities characteristic of glassy dynamics.

• Received 3 March 2023
• Revised 28 September 2023
• Accepted 29 September 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.105603