We model a cord lying in a random orientation on a horizontal surface, and solve the model stochastic differential equations for the mean and variance of the squared distance between cord ends. The analytical solutions fit the simulation data and measurements made on dropped cords and have a number of applications including the shape of polymers and photon trajectories.
REFERENCES
1.
Robert
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2.
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N. G. van Kampen, Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry (North-Holland, Dordrecht, 1981), Chap. 9;
D. S. Lemons, An Introduction to Stochastic Processes in Physics (Johns Hopkins U.P., Baltimore, MD, 2002).
3.
Howard C. Berg, Random Walks in Biology (Princeton U.P., Princeton, NJ, (1993).
4.
Paul J. Flory, Statistical Mechanics of Chain Molecules (Interscience, New York, 1969), p. 10 ff.
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See Ref. 2 or C. W. Gardiner, Handbook of Stochastic Methods (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1994).
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D. S. Lemons and B. J. Albright, “Quiet Monte Carlo radiation transport,” J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. (to be published).
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