English

Dielectric response as a source of viscosity in polar liquids

Statistical Mechanics 2026-05-12 v2

Abstract

Transport coefficients and dielectric relaxation in liquids are often treated as distinct manifestations of molecular dynamics. We show that, in polar liquids, orientational dipolar fluctuations generate a substantial contribution to the shear viscosity that can be expressed in terms of dielectric response parameters. Using a Green-Kubo approach formulated in terms of dipolar body-force correlations, we derive an explicit relation linking the viscosity increment to the static permittivity and the Debye relaxation time. With a single microscopic cutoff length fixed from one temperature, the theory predicts the temperature dependence of the viscosity for water and several alcohols using independently measured dielectric data. The results identify a general mechanism by which slow polarization dynamics generate an additional, and in strongly polar liquids often dominant, contribution to the viscosity, providing a quantitative bridge between dielectric spectroscopy and rheology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.00262,
  title  = {Dielectric response as a source of viscosity in polar liquids},
  author = {David S. Dean and Haim Diamant},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.00262},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages 3 figure