Theorem on the distribution of short-time particle displacements with physical applications (Q2494503)

The distribution of initial short-time displacements of particles is considered for a class of classical systems under rather general conditions on the dynamics and with Gaussian initial velocity distribution, while the position could have an arbitrary distribution. This class of systems contains the canonical equilibrium of a Hamiltonian system as a special case. The correlations of the initial short-time displacements may be expressed in terms of so-called cumulants. Thus the necessary physical and mathematical definitions are given to be able to treat the cumulants of the particle displacements. Further, some mathematical properties of the cumulants are discussed. The authors present a mathematical theorem that says that for the considered general class of systems the \(n\)th order cumulants of the initial short-time displacement behave as the \(2n\)-th power of time for all \(n>2\), rather than exhibiting an \(n\)th power scaling. The \(n\)-th power scaling occurs for \(n\leq2\). The theorem is proven mathematically. The results obtained in the present paper have direct applications to the initial short-time behavior of the Van Hove self-correlation function, to its non-equilibrium generalizations by Green's functions for mass transport, and to the non-Gaussian parameters used in supercooled liquids and glasses. Discussing these physical applications, the authors found the following special results: 1) A well-known short-time expansion of the Van Hove self-correlation is well behaved, i.e.\ each subsequent term in the expansion is smaller than the previous one for small enough times \(t\), something which had been suspected but not established before. 2) The studies of undercooled liquids and glasses, using cumulants instead of the usual non-Gaussian parameters, may give more physical information. 3) It is shown that the expansion used in the Green's functions theory is also well behaved if the velocity distributions are initially Gaussian ones, so that this theory, which can describe non-equilibrium mass transport processes on short time and length scales, has now been given a firmer basis.