Microscopic origin of stretched-exponential relaxation

Establish a generally accepted microscopic derivation of stretched-exponential relaxation that explains why the Kohlrausch–Williams–Watts law occurs across diverse disordered and complex systems.

Background

The paper identifies the widespread occurrence of stretched-exponential relaxation as a longstanding issue in condensed-matter physics. Although the Kohlrausch–Williams–Watts expression successfully describes relaxation in glasses, polymers, colloids, spin glasses, granular materials, biological systems, and other complex systems, its underlying microscopic mechanism has not received a generally accepted explanation. The Trachenko–Zaccone equation is presented as one framework intended to derive non-Debye relaxation dynamically from interactions among local relaxation events, but the broader microscopic origin of the observed universality remains unresolved.