Correlation function molecular reorientation

Dynamic information such as reorientational correlation functions and diffusion constants for the ions can readily be obtained. Collective properties such as viscosity can also be calculated in principle, but it is difficult to obtain accurate results in reasonable simulation times. Single-particle properties such as diffusion constants can be determined more easily from simulations. Figure 4.3-4 shows the mean square displacements of cations and anions in dimethylimidazolium chloride at 400 K. The rapid rise at short times is due to rattling of the ions in the cages of neighbors. The amplitude of this motion is about 0.5 A. After a few picoseconds the mean square displacement in all three directions is a linear function of time and the slope of this portion of the curve gives the diffusion constant. These diffusion constants are about a factor of 10 lower than those in normal molecular liquids at room temperature. 

Although long-time Debye relaxation proceeds exponentially, short-time deviations are detectable which represent inertial effects (free rotation between collisions) as well as interparticle interaction during collisions. In Debye s limit the spectra have already collapsed and their Lorentzian centre has a width proportional to the rotational diffusion coefficient. In fact this result is model-independent. Only shape analysis of the far wings can discriminate between different models of molecular reorientation and explain the high-frequency pecularities of IR and FIR spectra (like Poley absorption). In the conclusion of Chapter 2 we attract the readers attention to the solution of the inverse problem which is the extraction of the angular momentum correlation function from optical spectra of liquids. 

Here u is a unit vector oriented along the rotational symmetry axis, while in a spherical molecule it is an arbitrary vector rigidly connected to the molecular frame. The scalar product u(t) (0) is cos 0(t) in classical theory, where 6(t) is the angle of u reorientation with respect to its initial position. It can be easily seen that both orientational correlation functions are the average values of the corresponding Legendre polynomials ... 

Dill J. F., Litovitz T. A., Bucaro J. A. Molecular reorientation in liquids by Rayleigh scattering pressure dependence of rotational correlation functions, J. Chem. Phys. 62, 3839-50 (1975). 

Here the vector rj represents the centre of mass position, and D is usually averaged over several time origins to to improve statistics. Values for D can be resolved parallel and perpendicular to the director to give two components (D//, Dj ), and actual values are summarised for a range of studies in Table 3 of [45]. Most studies have found diffusion coefficients in the 10 m s range with the ratio D///Dj between 1.59 and 3.73 for calamitic liquid crystals. Yakovenko and co-workers have carried out a detailed study of the reorientational motion in the molecule PCH5 [101]. Their results show that conformational molecular flexibility plays an important role in the dynamics of the molecule. They also show that cage models can be used to fit the reorientational correlation functions of the molecule. 

As seen from the above theoretical developments, accessing geometrical (and stereochemical) information implies at least an estimation of the dynamical part of the various relaxation parameters. The latter is represented by spectral densities which rest on the calculation of the Fourier transform of auto- or cross-correlation functions. These calculations require necessarily a model for describing molecular reorientation... 

Small-step rotational diffusion is the model universally used for characterizing the overall molecular reorientation. If the molecule is of spherical symmetry (or approximately this is generally the case for molecules of important size), a single rotational diffusion coefficient is needed and the molecular tumbling is said isotropic. According to this model, correlation functions obey a diffusion type equation and we can write... 

A small step rotational diffusion model has been used to describe molecular rotations (MR) of rigid molecules in the presence of a potential of mean torque.118 120,151 t0 calculate the orientation correlation functions, the rotational diffusion equation must be solved to give the conditional probability for the molecule in a certain orientation at time t given that it has a different orientation at t = 0, and the equilibrium probability for finding the molecule with a certain orientation. These orientation correlation functions were found as a sum of decaying exponentials.120 In the notation of Tarroni and Zannoni,123 the spectral denisities (m = 0, 1, 2) for a deuteron fixed on a reorienting symmetric top molecule are ... 

In order to extract some more information from the csa contribution to relaxation times, the next step is to switch to a molecular frame (x,y,z) where the shielding tensor is diagonal (x, y, z is called the Principal Axis System i.e., PAS). Owing to the properties reported in (44), the relevant calculations include the transformation of gzz into g x, yy, and g z involving, for the calculation of spectral densities, the correlation function of squares of trigonometric functions such as cos20(t)cos20(O) (see the previous section and more importantly Eq. (29) for the definition of the normalized spectral density J((d)). They yield for an isotropic reorientation (the molecule is supposed to behave as a sphere)... 

In general, fluctuations in any electron Hamiltonian terms, due to Brownian motions, can induce relaxation. Fluctuations of anisotropic g, ZFS, or anisotropic A tensors may provide relaxation mechanisms. The g tensor is in fact introduced to describe the interaction energy between the magnetic field and the electron spin, in the presence of spin orbit coupling, which also causes static ZFS in S > 1/2 systems. The A tensor describes the hyperfine coupling of the unpaired electron(s) with the metal nuclear-spin. Stochastic fluctuations can arise from molecular reorientation (with correlation time Tji) and/or from molecular distortions, e.g., due to collisions (with correlation time t ) (18), the latter mechanism being usually dominant. The electron relaxation time is obtained (15) as a function of the squared anisotropies of the tensors and of the correlation time, with a field dependence due to the term x /(l + x ). 

The shape of the vibration-rotation bands in infrared absorption and Raman scattering experiments on diatomic molecules dissolved in a host fluid have been used to determine2,15 the autocorrelation functions unit vector pointing along the molecular axis and P2(x) is the Legendre polynomial of index 2. These correlation functions measure the rate of rotational reorientation of the molecule in the host fluid. The observed temperature- and density-dependence of these functions yields a great deal of information about reorientation in solids, liquids, and gases. These correlation functions have been successfully evaluated on the basis of molecular models.15... 

A. Molecular Reorientation Correlation Function, Spectrum, and Susceptibility... 

The NMR frequencies at two times separated by the time tm, and thus the corresponding orientations [cf. Eq. (15)] are correlated via cosine functions. The correlation function CSin(fm tp), where the cosine functions are replaced by sine functions, may also be accessible modifying pulse lengths and pulse phases in an appropriate way. This is possible for both CSA and Q interactions. Rotational jumps of the molecules during the mixing time tm lead to 0)>(0) / tm), and hence to a decay of CCOSjSin(fm tp). Therefore, these correlation functions provide access to the details of the molecular reorientation dynamics. 

Coming to the present volume, one aim has been to provide a basis on which the student and researcher in molecular science can build a sound appreciation of the present and future developments. Accordingly, the chapters do not presume too much previous knowledge of their subjects. Professor Scaife is concerned, inter alia, to make clear what is the character of those aspects of the macroscopic dielectric behaviour which can be precisely delineated in the theoretical representations which rest on Maxwell s analysis, and he relates these to some of the general microscopic features. The time-dependent aspects of these features are the particular concern of Chapter 2 in which Dr. Wyllie gives an exposition of the essentials of molecular correlation functions. As dielectric relaxation methods provided one of the clearest models of relaxation studies, there is reason to suggest that dipole reorientation provides one of the clearest examples of the correlational treatment. If only for this reason, Dr. Wyllie s chapter could well provide valuable insights for many whose primary interest is not in dielectrics. 

We conclude this section with some brief comments about microscopic dynamics at liquid interfaces. Molecular dynamic simulations of the dynamic properties of liquid interfaces have been limited to the calculation of equilibrium time correlation functions. The methodology of these calculations has been discussed earlier. One property that has received much attention is the molecular reorientation correlation function. If e(r) is a unit vector fixed in the molecular frame, the nth order time correlation function is defined by... 

The correlation function for molecular reorientation where /t(t) is a unit vector fixed in the rotating body at orientation (6,0) at time t is given by... 

The evolution of the many-molecule dynamics, with more and more units participating in the motion with increasing time, is mirrored directly in colloidal suspensions of particles using confocal microscopy [213]. The correlation function of the dynamically heterogeneous a-relaxation is stretched over more decades of time than the linear exponential Debye relaxation function as a consequence of the intermolecularly cooperative dynamics. Other multidimensional NMR experiments [226] have shown that molecular reorientation in the heterogeneous a-relaxation occurs by relatively small jump angles, conceptually simlar to the primitive relaxation or as found experimentally for the JG relaxation [227]. 

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