Molecular dynamics and analytical Langevin equation approach for the self-diffusion constant of an anisotropic fluid

Pedro J. Colmenares, Floralba López, and Wilmer Olivares-Rivas

Phys. Rev. E 80, 061123 – Published 16 December 2009

Abstract

We carried out a molecular-dynamics (MD) study of the self-diffusion tensor of a Lennard-Jones-type fluid, confined in a slit pore with attractive walls. We developed Bayesian equations, which modify the virtual layer sampling method proposed by Liu, Harder, and Berne (LHB) [P. Liu, E. Harder, and B. J. Berne, J. Phys. Chem. B 108, 6595 (2004)]. Additionally, we obtained an analytical solution for the corresponding nonhomogeneous Langevin equation. The expressions found for the mean-squared displacement in the layers contain naturally a modification due to the mean force in the transverse component in terms of the anisotropic diffusion constants and mean exit time. Instead of running a time consuming dual MD-Langevin simulation dynamics, as proposed by LHB, our expression was used to fit the MD data in the entire survival time interval not only for the parallel but also for the perpendicular direction. The only fitting parameter was the diffusion constant in each layer.