Velocity and force autocorrelations in Brownian dynamics with a Lorentz force

Abstract

We derive a general relation between the velocity and force autocorrelation tensors (VACT and FACT) for a Brownian particle subject to an external magnetic field. Using time-symmetry arguments, we show that, for the full Langevin dynamics, the VACT depends only on the FACT, independently of the details of the interaction potential. Under the hypothesis of timescale separation between thermalization and interaction-driven motion, this relation simplifies considerably in the overdamped (Brownian) limit. A central feature of the overdamped result is that, unlike in the field-free case, the part of the VACT that controls the self-diffusion of the particle couples to the antisymmetric part of the FACT, with a coupling strength set by the ratio of the cyclotron frequency to the thermalization rate. We validate and illustrate the formalism on an exactly solvable model: a dimer of charged particles bound by a harmonic potential. Depending on the relative sign of the particle charges, the magnetic field is found to produce either a transient suppression of mobility and diffusion that is fully recovered at long times, or a persistent oscillatory force autocorrelation, regions of negative mobility, and a long-time suppression of self-diffusion.