Coordinate and Momentum Distributions of a Small Composite System

Abstract

An isolated small system consisting of a movable shell and a finite number of internal particles is considered. Exact distributions of the shell coordinates and momenta are obtained for various types of internal particle motion under the conditions of conservation of the total energy and momentum of the system. The coordinate distribution consists of a finite number of branches and may contain plateau regions. The momentum distribution corresponds to a non-uniform distribution of energy among the degrees of freedom of the system. It is shown that the coordinate distribution depends on the number of internal particles and remains unchanged when the dimensionality of their motion varies, whereas the momentum distribution depends on the number of degrees of freedom. Consequently, comparison of the coordinate and momentum distributions of the shell makes it possible to draw conclusions about the internal structure of the system. The chaotic motion of the shell caused by impacts from the internal particles is analyzed; unlike Brownian motion, it persists even in the absence of an external medium. A universal expression for the root-mean-square deviation of the shell is obtained explicitly, depending on the number of internal particles and their masses.