Brownian motion fractional rotational diffusion

Chapter 8 by W. T. Coffey, Y. P. Kalmykov, and S. V. Titov, entitled Fractional Rotational Diffusion and Anomalous Dielectric Relaxation in Dipole Systems, provides an introduction to the theory of fractional rotational Brownian motion and microscopic models for dielectric relaxation in disordered systems. The authors indicate how anomalous relaxation has its origins in anomalous diffusion and that a physical explanation of anomalous diffusion may be given via the continuous time random walk model. It is demonstrated how this model may be used to justify the fractional diffusion equation. In particular, the Debye theory of dielectric relaxation of an assembly of polar molecules is reformulated using a fractional noninertial Fokker-Planck equation for the purpose of extending that theory to explain anomalous dielectric relaxation. Thus, the authors show how the Debye rotational diffusion model of dielectric relaxation of polar molecules (which may be described in microscopic fashion as the diffusion limit of a discrete time random walk on the surface of the unit sphere) may be extended via the continuous-time random walk to yield the empirical Cole-Cole, Cole-Davidson, and Havriliak-Negami equations of anomalous dielectric relaxation from a microscopic model based on a... 

In order to describe the fractional rotational diffusion, we use the FKKE for the evolution of the probability density function W in configuration angular-velocity space for linear molecules in the same form as for fixed-axis rotators—that is, the form of the FKKE suggested by Barkai and Silbey [30] for one-dimensional translational Brownian motion. For rotators in space, the FKKE becomes... 

In the present section, it is demonstrated how the linear response of an assembly of noninteracting polar Brownian particles to a small external field F applied parallel and perpendicular to the bias field Fo may be calculated in the context of the fractional noninertial rotational diffusion in the same manner as normal rotational diffusion [8]. In order to carry out the calculation, it is assumed that the rotational Brownian motion of a particle may be described by a fractional noninertial Fokker-Planck (Smoluchowski) equation, in which the inertial effects are neglected. Both exact and approximate solutions of this equation are presented. We shall demonstrate that the characteristic times of the normal diffusion process, namely, the integral and effective relaxation times obtained in Refs. 8, 65, and 67, allow one to evaluate the dielectric response for anomalous diffusion. Moreover, these characteristic times yield a simple analytical equation for the complex dielectric susceptibility tensor describing the anomalous relaxation of the system. The exact solution of the problem reduces to the solution of the infinite hierarchies of differential-recurrence equations for the corresponding relaxation functions. The longitudinal and transverse components of the susceptibility tensor may be calculated exactly from the Laplace transform of these relaxation functions using linear response theory [72]. 

The approach for rigid rotators proposed above can be extended [90] to the orientational relaxation of an assembly of dipolar nonpolarizable symmetrical top molecules undergoing fractional diffusion in space (treated originally by McConnell [41], Morita [91], and Coffey et al. [8,92] for normal diffusion). The rotational Brownian motion of a symmetric top molecule in the molecular coordinate system oxyz rigidly connected to the top is characterized by the angular velocity co and the angular momentum M defined as [41]... 

The self-diffusion coefficients of toluene in polystyrene gels are approximately the same as in solutions of the same volume fraction lymer, according to pulsed field gradient NMR experiments (2fl). Toluene in a 10% cross-linked polystyrene swollen to 0.55 volume fraction polymer has a self-diffusion coefficient about 0.08 times that of bulk liquid toluene. Rates of rotational diffusion (molecular Brownian motion) determined from NMR spin-lattice relaxation times of toluene in 2% cross-linked ((polystytyl)methyl)tri-/t-butylphosphonium ion phase transfer catalysts arc reduced by factors of 3 to 20 compai with bulk liquid toluene (21). Rates of rotational diffusion of a soluble nitroxide in polystyrene gels, determined from ESR linewidths, decrease as the degree of swelling of the polymer decreases (321. 

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