Phase space limit

Lifetime increases for weakly excited state due to phase space limitations for scattering events near the Fermi level. Hertel [28] demonstrated experimentally that... 

A unimolecular reaction can be viewed as a reaction flux in phase space. It is best to have in mind a potential energy surface with a real barrier in the product channel, that is, a saddle point. Figure 6.4 shows both the reaction coordinate and a picture of the phase space associated with the molecule and the transition state. Recall, that a molecule of several atoms having a total of m internal degrees of freedom can be fully described by the motion of m positions (q) and m momenta (p). At any instant in time, the system is thus fully described by 2m coordinates. A constant energy molecule (a microcanonical system) has its phase space limited to a surface in which the Hamiltonian H = E. Thus, the dimensionality of this hypersurface is reduced to 2m — 1. 

Extension to the multidimensional case is trivial. Wigner developed a complete mechanical system, equivalent to quantum mechanics, based on this distribution. He also showed that it satisfies many properties desired by a phase-space distribution, and in the high-temperature limit becomes the classical distribution. 

The main difference between the force-bias and the smart Monte Carlo methods is that the latter does not impose any limit on the displacement that m atom may undergo. The displacement in the force-bias method is limited to a cube of the appropriate size centred on the atom. However, in practice the two methods are very similar and there is often little to choose between them. In suitable cases they can be much more efficient at covering phase space and are better able to avoid bottlenecks in phase space than the conventional Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm. The methods significantly enhance the acceptance rate of trial moves, thereby enabling Icirger moves to be made as well as simultaneous moves of more than one particle. However, the need to calculate the forces makes the methods much more elaborate, and comparable in complexity to molecular dynamics. 

The basic Landau-Ginzburg model is valid only for relatively weak surfactants and in a limited region of the phase space. In order to find a more general mesoscopic description, valid also for strong surfactants and in a more extended region of the phase space, we derive in this section a mesoscopic Landau-Ginzburg model from the lattice CHS model [16]. 

In contrast to dissipative dynamical systems, conservative systems preserve phase-space volumes and hence cannot display any attracting regions in phase space there can be no fixed points, no limit cycles and no strange attractors. There can nonetheless be chaotic motion in the sense that points along particular trajectories may show sensitivity to initial conditions. A familiar example of a conservative system from classical mechanics is that of a Hamiltonian system. 

Since the phase space of a dissipative dynamical system contracts with time, we know that, in the long time limit, t oo, the motion will be confined to some fixed attractor, A. Moreover, becaust of the contraction, the dimension, D, of A, must be lower than that of the actual phase space. While D adds little information in the case of a noiichaotic attractor (we know immediately, and trivially, for example, that all fixed-points have D = 0, limit cycles have D = 1, 2-tori have D = 2, etc.), it is of significant interest for strange attractors, whose dimension is typically non-integer valued. Three of the most common measures of D are the fractal dimension, information dimension and correlation dimension. 

Rosenstock (55) pointed out that the initial formulation of the theory failed to consider the effect of angular momentum on the decomposition of the complex. The products of reaction must surmount a potential barrier in order to separate, which is exactly analogous to the potential barrier to complex formation. Such considerations are implicit in the phase space theory of Light and co-workers (34, 36, 37). These restrictions limit the population of a given output channel of the reaction com-... 

The phase space theory in its present form suffers from the usual computational difficulties and from the fact it has thus far been developed only for treating three-body processes and a limited number of output channels. Further, to treat dissociation as occurring only through excitation of rotational levels beyond a critical value for bound vibrational states is rather artificial. Nevertheless, it is a useful framework for discussing ion-molecule reaction rates and a powerful incentive for further work. 

For nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, the present development of a phase space probability distribution that properly accounts for exchange with a reservoir, thermal or otherwise, is a significant advance. In the linear limit the probability distribution yielded the Green-Kubo theory. From the computational point of view, the nonequilibrium phase space probability distribution provided the basis for the first nonequilibrium Monte Carlo algorithm, and this proved to be not just feasible but actually efficient. Monte Carlo procedures are inherently more mathematically flexible than molecular dynamics, and the development of such a nonequilibrium algorithm opens up many, previously intractable, systems for study. The transition probabilities that form part of the theory likewise include the influence of the reservoir, and they should provide a fecund basis for future theoretical research. The application of the theory to molecular-level problems answers one of the two questions posed in the first paragraph of this conclusion the nonequilibrium Second Law does indeed provide a quantitative basis for the detailed analysis of nonequilibrium problems. 

For ergodic systems, the probability of visiting the neighborhood of each point in phase space converges to a unique limiting value as T —> oo, such that the time average of / is equal to its ensemble average... 

Currently, our understanding and the guidelines extracted from phase space considerations are largely limited to a qualitative level. Further development is needed to... 

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