The microscopic features of the particle trajectories in the Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of strongly coupled one-component plasmas are analyzed as functions of the sequential number c of the MC configurations. It is found that the MC particles behave as if they were trapped in the potential dimples of ion spheres in the small-c regime; in the large-c regime they perform diffusive motion in the fluid simulations and remain localized around the lattice sites in the crystalline simulations. These findings enable us to establish a correspondence between c and the ‘‘MC elapsed time.’’ Application of this correspondence in the large-c regime leads to an estimate of the diffusion coefficient in the fluid regime which agrees well with the one evaluated independently through the molecular-dynamics method.

• Received 9 February 1988

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.38.1457