Abstract
We study by light microscopy a soft glass consisting of a compact arrangement of polydisperse multilamellar vesicles. We show that its slow and nonstationary dynamics results from the unavoidable small fluctuations of temperature, which induce intermittent local shear deformations in the sample, because of thermal expansion and contraction. Temperature-induced shear provokes both reversible and irreversible rearrangements whose amplitude decreases with time, leading to an exponential slowing down of the dynamics with sample age.
- Received 27 March 2006
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.238301
©2006 American Physical Society