Transport tensors in perfectly aligned low-density fluids: self-diffusion and thermal conductivity.

Abstract

The modified Taxman equation for the kinetic theory of low-density fluids composed of rigid aspherical molecules possessing internal degrees of freedom is generalized to obtain the transport tensors in a fluid of aligned molecules. The theory takes care of the shape of the particles exactly but the solution has been obtained only for the case of perfectly aligned hard spheroids within the framework of the first Sonine polynomial approximation. The expressions for the thermal-conductivity components have been obtained for the first time whereas the self-diffusion components obtained here turn out to be exactly the same as those derived by Kumar and Masters [Mol. Phys. 81, 491 (1994)] through the solution of the Lorentz-Boltzmann equation. All our expressions yield correct results in the hard-sphere limit.