The short-time self-diffusion coefficient of a sphere in a suspension of rigid rods

TL;DR

This paper calculates the short-time self-diffusion coefficient of a sphere in a suspension of rigid rods, considering hydrodynamic interactions and deriving analytical and numerical results for various rod aspect ratios.

Contribution

It provides a first-order analytical and numerical analysis of how rigid rods affect the diffusion of a sphere, including new expressions for different aspect ratios.

Findings

Correction to diffusion coefficient is linear in rod volume fraction at low concentrations.

In the limit of very long rods, correction is independent of sphere size.

An approximate expression valid for various aspect ratios is derived.

Abstract

The short--time self diffusion coefficient of a sphere in a suspension of rigid rods is calculated in first order in the rod volume fraction. For low rod concentrations the correction to the Einstein diffusion constant of the sphere is a linear function of the rod volume fraction with the slope proportional to the equilibrium averaged mobility diminution trace of the sphere interacting with a single freely translating and rotating rod. The two--body hydrodynamic interactions are calculated using the so--called bead model in which the rod is replaced by a stiff linear chain of touching spheres. The interactions between spheres are calculated numerically using the multipole method. Also an analytical expression for the diffusion coefficient as a function of the rod aspect ratio is derived in the limit of very long rods. We show that in this limit the correction to the Einstein diffusion constant does not depend on the size of the tracer sphere. The higher order corrections depending on the applied model are computed numerically. An approximate expression is provided, valid for a wide range of aspect ratios.