Diffusion coefficient scaling of a free Brownian particle with velocity-dependent damping.

Abstract

An analytical expression for the diffusion coefficient D of a free Brownian particle with velocity-dependent damping γ(v) is derived from the Green-Kubo formula. A special case of damping that decreases monotonically with velocity is considered. At high temperature T, the diffusion coefficient is found to exhibit two scaling types: (i) for a power-law decrease of damping with the particle's kinetic energy, γ(v)∝1/v^{2α}, it scales as D∝T^{α+1}; (ii) for a Gaussian function γ(v), it diverges at temperatures above a critical value T_{c} and behaves as D∝1/sqrt[T_{c}-T] at T slightly below T_{c}. At T>T_{c}, the particle trajectory contains long flight events, which are not observed at T<T_{c} in case (ii) and at all temperatures in case (i).