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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cheung, Long Him, Jarzynski, Christopher
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01696
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Table of Contents:
  • The added mass effect is the contribution to a Brownian particle's effective mass arising from the hydrodynamic flow its motion induces. For a spherical particle in an incompressible fluid, the added mass is half the fluid's displaced mass, but in a compressible fluid its value depends on a competition between timescales. Here we illustrate this behavior with a solvable model of two harmonically coupled Brownian particles of mass $m$, one representing the sphere, the other the immediately surrounding fluid. The measured distribution of the Brownian particle's velocity, $P(\bar{v})$, follows a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with an effective mass $m^*$. Solving analytically for $m^*$, we find that its value is determined by three relevant timescales: the momentum relaxation time, $t_p$, the harmonic oscillation period, $τ$, and the velocity measurement time resolution, $Δt$. In limiting cases $Δt \ll τ,t_p$ and $τ\llΔt\ll t_p$, our expression for $m^*$ reduces to $m$ and $2m$, respectively. We find similar behavior upon generalizing the model to the case of unequal masses.