Metrization theorem

In physics, particularly statistical mechanics, the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution or Maxwell speed distribution describes particle speeds in idealized gases where the particles move freely inside a stationary container without interacting with one another, except for very brief collisions in which they exchange energy and momentum with each other or with their thermal environment. Particle in this context refers to either gaseous atoms or molecules, and the system of particles is assumed to have reached thermodynamic equilibrium.

The distribution is a probability distribution for the speed of a particle within the gas - the magnitude of its velocity. This probability distribution indicates which speeds are more likely: a particle will have a speed selected randomly from the distribution, and is more likely to be within one range of speeds than another. The distribution depends on the temperature of the system and the mass of the particle.

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution applies to the classical ideal gas, which is an idealization of real gases. In real gases, there are various effects (e.g., van der Waals interactions, relativistic speed limits, and quantum exchange interactions) that make their speed distribution sometimes very different from the Maxwell–Boltzmann form. That said, rarefied gases at ordinary temperatures behave very nearly like an ideal gas and the Maxwell speed distribution is an excellent approximation for such gases. Thus, it forms the basis of the kinetic theory of gases, which provides a simplified explanation of many fundamental gaseous properties, including pressure and diffusion.

The distribution is named after James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. While the distribution was first derived by Maxwell in 1860 on basic grounds, Boltzmann later carried out significant investigations into the physical origins of this distribution.

Distribution function

The speed probability density functions of the speeds of a few noble gases at a temperature of 298.15 K (25 °C). The y-axis is in s/m so that the area under any section of the curve (which represents the probability of the speed being in that range) is dimensionless.

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution is the function

$f(v)={\sqrt {\left({\frac {m}{2\pi kT}}\right)^{3}}}\,4\pi v^{2}\exp \left(-{\frac {mv^{2}}{2kT}}\right),$

where $m$ is the particle mass and $kT$ is the product of Boltzmann's constant and thermodynamic temperature.

This probability density function gives the probability, per unit speed, of finding the particle with a speed near $v$. This equation is simply the Maxwell distribution (given in the infobox) with distribution parameter $a={\sqrt {kT/m}}$. In probability theory the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution is a chi distribution with three degrees of freedom and scale parameter $a={\sqrt {kT/m}}$.

Typical speeds

The mean speed, most probable speed (mode), and root-mean-square can be obtained from properties of the Maxwell distribution.

• The most probable speed, v_p, is the speed most likely to be possessed by any molecule (of the same mass m) in the system and corresponds to the maximum value or mode of f(v). To find it, we calculate df/dv, set it to zero and solve for v:

  ${\frac {df(v)}{dv}}=0$

  which yields:

  $v_{p}={\sqrt {\frac {2kT}{m}}}={\sqrt {\frac {2RT}{M}}}$

  where R is the gas constant and M = N_A m is the molar mass of the substance. For diatomic nitrogen (N₂, the primary component of air) at room temperature (300 K), this gives $v_{p}=422$m/s
• The mean speed is the mathematical average of the speed distribution

  $\langle v\rangle =\int _{0}^{\infty }v\,f(v)\,dv={\sqrt {\frac {8kT}{\pi m}}}={\sqrt {\frac {8RT}{\pi M}}}={\frac {2}{\sqrt {\pi }}}v_{p}$

• The root mean square speed is the square root of the average squared speed:

  ${\sqrt {\langle v^{2}\rangle }}=\left(\int _{0}^{\infty }v^{2}\,f(v)\,dv\right)^{1/2}={\sqrt {\frac {3kT}{m}}}={\sqrt {\frac {3RT}{M}}}={\sqrt {\frac {3}{2}}}v_{p}$

The typical speeds are related as follows:

$0.886\langle v\rangle =v_{p}<\langle v\rangle <{\sqrt {\langle v^{2}\rangle }}=1.085\langle v\rangle .$

Derivation and related distributions

The original derivation by Maxwell assumed all three directions would behave in the same fashion, but a later derivation by Boltzmann dropped this assumption using kinetic theory. The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution (for energies) can now most readily be derived from the Boltzmann distribution for energies (see also the Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics of statistical mechanics):

where:

• i is the microstate (indicating one configuration particle quantum states - see partition function).
• E_i is the energy level of microstate i.
• T is the equilibrium temperature of the system.
• g_i is the degeneracy factor, or number of degenerate microstates which have the same energy level
• k is the Boltzmann constant.
• N_i is the number of molecules at equilibrium temperature T, in a state i which has energy E_i and degeneracy g_i.
• N is the total number of molecules in the system.

Note that sometimes the above equation is written without the degeneracy factor g_i. In this case the index i will specify an individual state, rather than a set of g_i states having the same energy E_i. Because velocity and speed are related to energy, Equation (Template:EquationNote) can be used to derive relationships between temperature and the speeds of molecules in a gas. The denominator in this equation is known as the canonical partition function.

Distribution for the momentum vector

The following is a derivation wildly different from the derivation described by James Clerk Maxwell and later described with fewer assumptions by Ludwig Boltzmann. Instead it is close to Boltzmann's later approach of 1877.

For the case of an "ideal gas" consisting of non-interacting atoms in the ground state, all energy is in the form of kinetic energy, and g_i is constant for all i. The relationship between kinetic energy and momentum for massive particles is

where p² is the square of the momentum vector p = [p_x, p_y, p_z]. We may therefore rewrite Equation (Template:EquationNote) as:

where Z is the partition function, corresponding to the denominator in Equation (Template:EquationNote). Here m is the molecular mass of the gas, T is the thermodynamic temperature and k is the Boltzmann constant. This distribution of N_i/N is proportional to the probability density function f_p for finding a molecule with these values of momentum components, so:

The normalizing constant c, can be determined by recognizing that the probability of a molecule having some momentum must be 1. Therefore the integral of equation (Template:EquationNote) over all p_x, p_y, and p_z must be 1.

It can be shown that: Template:NumBlk

Substituting Equation (Template:EquationNote) into Equation (Template:EquationNote) gives:

The distribution is seen to be the product of three independent normally distributed variables $p_{x}$, $p_{y}$, and $p_{z}$, with variance $mkT$. Additionally, it can be seen that the magnitude of momentum will be distributed as a Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, with $a={\sqrt {mkT}}$. The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution for the momentum (or equally for the velocities) can be obtained more fundamentally using the H-theorem at equilibrium within the kinetic theory framework.

Distribution for the energy

Using p² = 2mE, and the distribution function for the magnitude of the momentum (see below), we get the energy distribution:

Since the energy is proportional to the sum of the squares of the three normally distributed momentum components, this distribution is a gamma distribution; in particular, it is a chi-squared distribution with three degrees of freedom.

By the equipartition theorem, this energy is evenly distributed among all three degrees of freedom, so that the energy per degree of freedom is distributed as a chi-squared distribution with one degree of freedom:

$f_{\epsilon }(\epsilon )\,d\epsilon ={\sqrt {\frac {1}{\epsilon \pi kT}}}~\exp \left[{\frac {-\epsilon }{kT}}\right]\,d\epsilon$

where $\epsilon$ is the energy per degree of freedom. At equilibrium, this distribution will hold true for any number of degrees of freedom. For example, if the particles are rigid mass dipoles, they will have three translational degrees of freedom and two additional rotational degrees of freedom. The energy in each degree of freedom will be described according to the above chi-squared distribution with one degree of freedom, and the total energy will be distributed according to a chi-squared distribution with five degrees of freedom. This has implications in the theory of the specific heat of a gas.

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution can also be obtained by considering the gas to be a type of quantum gas.

Distribution for the velocity vector

Recognizing that the velocity probability density f_v is proportional to the momentum probability density function by

$f_{\mathbf {v} }d^{3}v=f_{\mathbf {p} }\left({\frac {dp}{dv}}\right)^{3}d^{3}v$

and using p = mv we get

$f_{\mathbf {v} }(v_{x},v_{y},v_{z})=\left({\frac {m}{2\pi kT}}\right)^{3/2}\exp \left[-{\frac {m(v_{x}^{2}+v_{y}^{2}+v_{z}^{2})}{2kT}}\right],$

which is the Maxwell–Boltzmann velocity distribution. The probability of finding a particle with velocity in the infinitesimal element [dv_x, dv_y, dv_z] about velocity v = [v_x, v_y, v_z] is

$f_{\mathbf {v} }\left(v_{x},v_{y},v_{z}\right)\,dv_{x}\,dv_{y}\,dv_{z}.$

Like the momentum, this distribution is seen to be the product of three independent normally distributed variables $v_{x}$, $v_{y}$, and $v_{z}$, but with variance ${\frac {kT}{m}}$. It can also be seen that the Maxwell–Boltzmann velocity distribution for the vector velocity [v_x, v_y, v_z] is the product of the distributions for each of the three directions:

$f_{v}\left(v_{x},v_{y},v_{z}\right)=f_{v}(v_{x})f_{v}(v_{y})f_{v}(v_{z})$

where the distribution for a single direction is

$f_{v}(v_{i})={\sqrt {\frac {m}{2\pi kT}}}\exp \left[{\frac {-mv_{i}^{2}}{2kT}}\right].$

Each component of the velocity vector has a normal distribution with mean $\mu _{v_{x}}=\mu _{v_{y}}=\mu _{v_{z}}=0$ and standard deviation $\sigma _{v_{x}}=\sigma _{v_{y}}=\sigma _{v_{z}}={\sqrt {\frac {kT}{m}}}$, so the vector has a 3-dimensional normal distribution, also called a "multinormal" distribution, with mean $\mu _{\mathbf {v} }={\mathbf {0} }$ and standard deviation $\sigma _{\mathbf {v} }={\sqrt {\frac {3kT}{m}}}$.

The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution for the speed follows immediately from the distribution of the velocity vector, above. Note that the speed is

$v={\sqrt {v_{x}^{2}+v_{y}^{2}+v_{z}^{2}}}$

and the increment of volume is

$dv_{x}\,dv_{y}\,dv_{z}=v^{2}\sin \theta \,dv\,d\theta \,d\phi$

where $\phi$ and $\theta$ are the "course" (azimuth of the velocity vector) and "path angle" (elevation angle of the velocity vector). Integration of the normal probability density function of the velocity, above, over the course (from 0 to $2\pi$) and path angle (from 0 to $\pi$), with substitution of the speed for the sum of the squares of the vector components, yields the speed distribution.

See also

• Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics
• Maxwell-Jüttner distribution
• Boltzmann distribution
• Boltzmann factor
• Rayleigh distribution
• Ideal gas law
• James Clerk Maxwell
• Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann
• Kinetic theory

References

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Further reading

• Physics for Scientists and Engineers - with Modern Physics (6th Edition), P. A. Tipler, G. Mosca, Freeman, 2008, ISBN 0-7167-8964-7
• Thermodynamics, From Concepts to Applications (2nd Edition), A. Shavit, C. Gutfinger, CRC Press (Taylor and Francis Group, USA), 2009, ISBN (13-) 978-1-4200-7368-3
• Chemical Thermodynamics, D.J.G. Ives, University Chemistry, Macdonald Technical and Scientific, 1971, ISBN 0-356-03736-3
• Elements of Statistical Thermodynamics (2nd Edition), L.K. Nash, Principles of Chemistry, Addison-Wesley, 1974, ISBN 0-201-05229-6
• Ward, CA & Fang, G 1999, 'Expression for predicting liquid evaporation flux: Statistical rate theory approach', Physical Review E, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 429-40.
• Rahimi, P & Ward, CA 2005, 'Kinetics of Evaporation: Statistical Rate Theory Approach', Int. J. of Thermodynamics, vol. 8, no. 9, pp. 1-14.

External links

• "The Maxwell Speed Distribution" from The Wolfram Demonstrations Project at Mathworld

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