Local self-motion of water through the Van Hove function

Y Shinohara and W Dmowski and T Iwashita and D Ishikawa and AQR Baron and T Egami, PHYSICAL REVIEW E, 102, 032604 (2020).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.102.032604

We show that the self-part of the Van Hove function-the correlation function describing the dynamics of a single molecule-of water can be determined through a high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering experiment. The measurement of inelastic x-ray scattering up to 10 angstrom(-1) makes it possible to convert the inelastic x-ray scattering spectra into the Van Hove function, and its self-part is extracted from the short-range correlations. The diffusivity estimated from the short- range dynamics of water molecules is different from the long-range diffusivity measured by other methods. This approach using the experimentally determined self-part of the Van Hove function will be useful to the study of the local dynamics of atoms and molecules in liquids.

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