We investigate the avalanche dynamics of thermal relaxation in glassy systems after a rapid quench by molecular simulation. We find that the particle rearrangements show local rearrangements with long-range quadrupolar displacements, and their sizes follow a power-law distribution satisfying a simple scaling relation. These results imply the relation between thermal relaxation of glassy systems, and avalanches in sheared amorphous solids and a recent theory on the thermal elastoplastic model. However, we also observe the properties unpredicted by the previous theories, including the smaller exponent of the distribution and the non-power-law growth of avalanche size against system size. Our results suggest that by viewing a glass as a thermally driven elastoplastic material, we can understand dynamics below the glass transition point, such as aging.

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• Plastic deformation
• Polymer aging
• Disordered systems
• Glasses
• Molecular dynamics