Diffusion Coefficient of a Brownian Particle in Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium: Einstein Model and Beyond

Abstract

The diffusion of small particles is omnipresent in many processes occurring in nature. As such, it is widely studied and exerted in almost all branches of sciences. It constitutes such a broad and often rather complex subject of exploration that we opt here to narrow our survey to the case of the diffusion coefficient for a Brownian particle that can be modeled in the framework of Langevin dynamics. Our main focus centers on the temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficient for several fundamental models of diverse physical systems. Starting out with diffusion in equilibrium for which the Einstein theory holds, we consider a number of physical situations outside of free Brownian motion and end by surveying nonequilibrium diffusion for a time-periodically driven Brownian particle dwelling randomly in a periodic potential. For this latter situation the diffusion coefficient exhibits an intriguingly non-monotonic dependence on temperature.