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Questions tagged [mean-free-path]

The average length that a molecule will travel in a fluid before colliding with another molecule.

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0 answers
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Mean free path equation for plasma

Does the mean free path equation $$\lambda=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}\pi d^2 n_v}$$ work for collisions in plasma or just for gas?
Waev's user avatar
  • 33
0 votes
0 answers
13 views

Predicting electrical mean free path in nanostructures?

How does one roughly predict the mean free path for electrical conduction in a nanostructure at different temperatures and under different electrical conditions such as different voltages and ...
ProfessorMoreRight's user avatar
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0 answers
52 views

Standard deviation for a free path distribution

I would like to be able to describe a particles path before collisions with greater precision. We can calculate the "mean" free path of a particle before colliding moving particles, but I ...
Roman Grachev's user avatar
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1 answer
57 views

How is number of collisions per unit distance related to mean free path?

Recently I have been studying Kinetic Theory Of Gases, with one of the topics as collision frequency. I know that collision frequency is inverse of relaxation time which is also the measure of number ...
Ankita Bharati's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
87 views

Determining the single particle energies in a neutrino opacity calculation

I'm attempting to recreate some plots from this paper on neutrino opacity calculations for interacting matter at supra-nuclear densities. Namely, I'm trying to write a Python script to perform the ...
10GeV's user avatar
  • 799
0 votes
1 answer
40 views

Why does computing mean free path from an air molecule's reference frame seem to greatly overestimate path length?

I was interested in seeing if I could derive the mean free path of an "air molecule" by considering the reference frame of an individual molecule as other particles moved around it randomly. ...
trevR's user avatar
  • 1
4 votes
1 answer
169 views

Number of fog droplets in the air

I have an issue with the official solution to this problem from BelPhO: Visibility on the road is 100 m. Assuming that the diameter of a fog droplet is 1 micron, estimate the concentration of fog ...
Bml's user avatar
  • 439
0 votes
1 answer
194 views

Mean free path of molecules

So in the book concepts in thermal physics(by Stephan and Katherine Blundell) the expression of mean scattering time is derived as shown(please refer the book for more). If we replace vdt in the ...
Mr. Wayne's user avatar
  • 353
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0 answers
33 views

Why is the sphere of influence of the molecule in mean free path a cylinder?

In my book for deriving mean free path a cylinder is taken to act as a sphere of influence of molecules with which it could bump into other molecules and its radius = diameter of the molecule we are ...
Naveen V's user avatar
  • 648
2 votes
1 answer
181 views

How does $\frac{\langle v\rangle}{\langle v_r\rangle}=\frac{1}{\sqrt2}$ imply the formula for the mean free path?

In this question, it was asked how the formula $$l=\frac{1}{\sqrt 2n\sigma }$$ can be rigorously derived for a Maxwell-Boltzmann gas. Here $l$ is the mean free path length in a gas, $n$ is the gas ...
Riemann's user avatar
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0 answers
176 views

Free Path Probability Distribution for an Ideal Gas

Suppose we have a gas with collisions. The mean free path, $l$, is the average distance a particle travels before colliding with another particle. This is the average, but what is the probability ...
Jbag1212's user avatar
  • 2,599
1 vote
0 answers
43 views

Question regarding correction factor in Mean free path

1)The expression for $Mean$ $Free$ $Path$ (ie) , $$λ=\dfrac{1}{πd²\dfrac{n}{V}}$$ is derived under the assumption that the particles except the one( let's consider it as particle $A$) you're ...
Harry Case's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
31 views

Collisional cross-section from attenuation factor

I am trying to find the mean free path of silver atoms travelling through air (I am given the temperature, pressure and that they are attenuated by a factor $2.72$ in a distance of $10^{-2}$m). I know ...
mp12853's user avatar
  • 75
2 votes
1 answer
133 views

Mean free path regarding billiards

Is there a generalization of the mean free path for macro-objects such as the distance the white billiard ball could travel before hitting an other billiard ball?
NHSH's user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
0 answers
115 views

Ratio of mean free paths between two equal volumes at different temperature, separated by a partition with pinhole

Question: A container is divided into two equal parts I and II by a partition with a small hole of diameter $d$. The two partitions are filled with same ideal gas, but held at temperatures $T_I$​= ...
Alpha Delta's user avatar
  • 1,022
4 votes
1 answer
549 views

What does ultra-rarefied gas mean?

Without using any math, can you explain to me what a rarefied gas is? And then what an ultra-rarefied gas is? I'd like to understand it from a conceptual level if you can make connections to other ...
Outsider's user avatar
  • 265
4 votes
0 answers
83 views

Which average are we taking in a rigorous calculation of the mean free path in a gas?

This is a question at one level beyond the standard introductions to kinetic theory. I want to know which average we are taking when we talk about a mean free path in a gas. I recently read Steve T. ...
Andrew Steane's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
233 views

Why is mean free path independent of mass?

In this page of Hyperphysics, I am puzzled as to why there isn't any mass dependence in the expressions for mean free path. Here are the two equations as mentioned in the website: When only one ...
Cathartic Encephalopathy's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why is the mean free path length of an electron in a solid described by a "universal curve"? (doesn't include electron density)

I've been experimenting with XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and learned that the depth from which the observed electrons originated depends on their mean free path length, which makes sense to ...
Wihtedeka's user avatar
  • 2,068
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

How to calculate the free mean path of electrons in the gas mixture? [closed]

How to calculate the free mean path of electrons in the gas mixture? I understand (a little bit) the mean free path concept for the atomic collisions but I am not sure what to do if I am interested in ...
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
486 views

What is the mean free path (MFP) of a Cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) photon?

If the IGM (inter-galactic medium) had a massive particle (proton) every cubic metre, or a carbon grain every cubic kilometre, what would be the MFP of a CMBR photon? The coherence length of the ...
barry's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
454 views

How can mean free path affect the propagation of sound in a gas?

I was thinking, since mean free path is a measure of "how long" a particle has to travel to collide with another, that this surely must influence sound propagation somehow. I would say this ...
Agnese's user avatar
  • 353
1 vote
1 answer
62 views

What does this equation represent?

While doing the Franck-Hertz experiment I noticed that I have been asked to write the current as a function of the Mean Free Path as following: $$ I=a\cdot e^{-\frac{b}{\lambda}}$$ I- current $\lambda$...
Sagigever's user avatar
  • 555
0 votes
0 answers
224 views

Franck Hertz experiment and the Mean Free Path

As part of my project in physics, I tried to repeat the franck hertz experiment, I did the same experiment with Neon and Mercury (the lengh between the catode and lattice is $5 mm$), I measured the ...
Sagigever's user avatar
  • 555
0 votes
2 answers
456 views

Infering the mean distance from density

A simple calculation surely but how we can infer the mean distance $l_{\text{mean}}$ between particles from their density $n$, i.e : $$l_{\text{mean}}=\left(\dfrac{1}{n}\right)^{1/3}$$ ? I tried to ...
user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
92 views

Monte Carlo approach to determining mean free path of Lévy dust

Problem statement I am trying to determine the mean free path $\lambda$ of a so-called Lévy dust, i.e. $M$ points in a square $L\times L$ environment with distances between subsequent points ...
Johannes Nauta's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
752 views

In particle physics what is the derivation of the mean free path length: $\ell=\frac{1}{n \sigma}$?

From my lecture notes (ICL, dept. of Physics) it is written: Consider a thin piece of material with thickness $d$ containing target particles with number density $n$, as illustrated in Figure $\bf{2....
BLAZE's user avatar
  • 2,470
10 votes
4 answers
3k views

Do photons slow down this much in the Sun's gravitational field?

I just heard someone mention that photons take 40 thousand years to travel from the centre of the Sun to its surface which is roughly 700,000 kilometres. How is that possible if the speed of light/...
user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
404 views

How to calculate the mean free time in Drude model?

According to Drude model, the average electron takes some time to go from one ion to another: this time is called mean free time. The problem is there isn't a satisfactory definition of this mean free ...
user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
369 views

Why does thermal conductivity decrease from solids to gases?

I am learning in my heat transfer class that the thermal conductivity decreases from solids to liquids to gases i.e. $$K_{solid} > K_{liquid}>K_{gas}$$ The reason cited is that (based on my ...
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