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Scale-Dependent Velocity Fluctuations Generated by Molecular Collisions

Chemical Physics 2026-02-26 v1

Abstract

A discrete binomial random-walk description of molecular collisions is used to quantify the variance of coarse-grained velocity fields arising solely from collision-induced momentum exchange. Closed-form expressions for the growth of velocity variance as functions of coarse-graining scale and time are derived and shown to imply a power-law decay of variance with averaging scale. Particle-based ensemble simulations validate the predicted scaling and temporal behaviour; surrogate ensemble tests demonstrate that phase/temporal coherence is required for the observed integrated transfer diagnostics. The analysis is intentionally restricted to collision-generated fluctuations in quiescent fluids and does not model cascade dynamics; implications for possible amplification under inertial dynamics are discussed cautiously. All data and the minimal verification instructions required to reproduce the summary tables are embedded in Appendix A.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.03279,
  title  = {Scale-Dependent Velocity Fluctuations Generated by Molecular Collisions},
  author = {Tristan Barkman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.03279},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:53:04.766Z