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Updated: Jan 11, 2026

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
Published on: May 1, 2018
Diffusion in the inverted triangular soft Lorentz gas
Esko Toivonen1, Aleksi Majaniemi1, Rainer Klages2,3
1Tampere University, Computational Physics Laboratory, P. O. Box 600, FI-33014 Tampere, Finland.
None:
We investigate diffusion in a two-dimensional inverted soft Lorentz gas, where attractive Fermi-type potential wells are arranged in a triangular lattice. This configuration contrasts with earlier studies of soft Lorentz gases involving repulsive scatterers. By systematically varying the gap width and softness of the potential, we explore a rich landscape of diffusive behaviors. We present numerical simulations of the mean-squared displacement and compute diffusion coefficients, identifying tonguelike structures in parameter space associated with quasiballistic transport. Furthermore, we develop an extension to the Machta-Zwanzig approximation that incorporates correlated multihop trajectories, and we correct for the influence of localized periodic orbits. Our findings highlight the qualitative and quantitative differences between inverted and repulsive soft Lorentz gases, and they offer new insights into transport phenomena in smooth periodic potentials.
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