Similarities in diversely different glass-forming systems

The experimental and the simulation results for the mean-square displacements in eight different systems (four suspensions of colloids and four molecular systems) are analyzed near their glass transitions by the mean-field theory recently proposed. The dependence of various physical quantities such as the relaxation times and the mean-free path on the long-time self-diffusion coefficient is fully investigated. Each physical quantity is shown to be a unique function of it. It is then suggested that the dynamics of apparently very different glass-forming systems is described by a master function if a value of that coefficient is the same. The universal features near the glass transitions are thus discussed from a unified point of view.