Brownian Motion in a Classical Ideal Gas: a Microscopic Approach to Langevin's Equation

Abstract

We present an insightful ``derivation'' of the Langevin equation and the fluctuation dissipation theorem in the specific context of a heavier particle moving through an ideal gas of much lighter particles. The Newton's Law of motion ($m\ddot{x}=F$) for the heavy particle reduces to a Langevin equation (valid on a coarser time scale) with the assumption that the lighter gas particles follow a Boltzmann velocity distribution. Starting from the kinematics of the random collisions we show that (1) the average force $<F>\propto -\dot{x}$ and (2) the correlation function of the fluctuating force $\hat{I}\cdot =F-<F>$ is related to the strength of the average force.

7 pages revtex4 3 eps figures included using psfig