Fractional diffusion in a periodic potential: Overdamped and inertia corrected solutions for the spectrum of the velocity correlation function

Abstract

Anomalous diffusion of a particle in a cosine periodic potential is treated using fractional diffusion equations in both phase and configuration space. Exact solutions of two distinct forms of the fractional Klein-Kramers (Fokker-Planck) equation for the distribution function in phase space are obtained via matrix continued fractions yielding the average velocity, the velocity autocorrelation function, its spectrum, etc. In the overdamped limit, the results yielded by both equations agree with those from a fractional probability density diffusion equation in configuration space. A simple analytic solution for the spectrum of the velocity correlation function is also given using the effective eigenvalue approximation. The results represent generalizations of the conventional solutions for the normal diffusion of a Brownian particle in a cosine potential to fractional dynamics (giving rise to anomalous diffusion).