Numerical solution for itinerant libration in two dimensions

The planar itinerant oscillator model of molecular motion in a structured fluid, developed recently by Coffey et al. is simulated by invoking collisions between 120 rough annuli within which are harmonically bound disks carrying a dipole unit vector u. It is found that the stochastic equations of motion of the analytical treatment produce results which can be reproduced very accurately with the deterministic equations of motion used in the computer simulation. This implies that the simulation may be extended to problems beyond analytical tractability, such as itinerant libration in three dimensions, and libration combined with centre of mass oscillation. The use of a model such as this is considered as intermediate between simple brownian-motion theory and a full scale simulation of polyatomics. © 1978.SCOPUS: ar.j