On the Brownian motion of a massive sphere suspended in a hard-sphere fluid. II. Molecular dynamics estimates of the friction coefficient

The friction coefficient γ exerted by a hard-sphere fluid on an infinitely massive Brownian sphere is calculated for several size ratios Σ/σ where Σ and σ are the diameters of the Brownian and fluid spheres, respectively. The exact microscopic expression derived in part I of this work from kinetic theory is transformed and shown to be proportional to the time integral of the autocorrelation function of the momentum transferred from the fluid to the Brownian sphere during instantaneous collisions. Three different methods are described to extract the friction coefficient from molecular dynamics simulations carried out on finite systems. The three independent methods lead to estimates of γ which agree within statistical errors (typically 5%). The results are compared to the predictions of Enskog theory and of the hydrodynamic Stokes law. The former breaks down as the size ratio and/or the packing fraction of the fluid increase. Somewhat surprisingly, Stokes' law is found to hold with stick boundary conditions, in the range 1 ≤ Σ/σ ≤ 4.5 explored in the present simulations, with a hydrodynamic diameter d=Σ. The analysis of the molecular dynamics data on the basis of Stokes' law with slip boundary conditions is less conclusive, although the right trend is found as Σ/σ increases