Diffusion on a Solid Surface: Anomalous is Normal

2003/10/24 by J. M. Sancho, A. M. Lacasta, Katja Lindenberg +5 · 9 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.stat-mech

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.92.250601

arxiv created 2003/10/24 · openalex publication_date 2004/06/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We present a numerical study of classical particles diffusing on a solid surface. The particles' motion is modeled by an underdamped Langevin equation with ordinary thermal noise. The particle-surface interaction is described by a periodic or a random two-dimensional potential. The model leads to a rich variety of different transport regimes, some of which correspond to anomalous diffusion such as has recently been observed in experiments and Monte Carlo simulations. We show that this anomalous behavior is controlled by the friction coefficient and stress that it emerges naturally in a system described by ordinary canonical Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics.

Citations

• Method for Generating Long-Range Correlations for Large Systems

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