Anisotropic diffusion of tagged spheres near the isotropic-nematic phase transition

• DOI: 10.1063/1.1415440
• Publication Date: 2002-07-26T12:01:09Z
• Authors: R. Vasanthi; S. Ravichandran; Biman Bagchi
• Keywords: Hard spheres

Molecular dynamics simulations of diffusion isolated tagged spheres in liquid crystalline molecules have been carried out. While the is isotropic at density slightly below isotropic-nematic phase transition, it found to become strongly anisotropic very close I-N transition where perpendicular direction order parameter g(D⊥) decouples from parallel (D∥) component. The coefficient sphere also shows a marked slowing down as approaches, accordance with mode coupling theory analysis. variation orientational sharp reduced density, ρIN* plot ratio, D∥/D⊥ against ρ* clearly emergence anisotropy. D⊥ could be fitted form (ρc*−ρ*)p ρc* which larger than ρIN*. strong non-Stokesian dependence on radius spheres, agreement recent experiments.