Density-dependent diffusion in the periodic Lorentz gas

Abstract

We study the deterministic diffusion coefficient of the two-dimensional periodic Lorentz gas as a function of the density of scatterers. Results obtained from computer simulations are compared to the analytical approximation of Machta and Zwanzig [Phys.Rev.Lett. 50, 1959 (1983)] showing that their argument is only correct in the limit of high densities. We discuss how the Machta-Zwanzig argument, which is based on treating diffusion as a Markovian hopping process on a lattice, can be corrected systematically by including microscopic correlations. We furthermore show that, on a fine scale, the diffusion coefficient is a non-trivial function of the density. We finally argue that, on a coarse scale and for lower densities, the diffusion coefficient exhibits a Boltzmann-like behavior, whereas for very high densities it crosses over to a regime which can be understood qualitatively by the Machta-Zwanzig approximation.