A Quantum Mechanical Formulation of the Bloch Nmr Flow Equations for Electron Dynamics in Fluids at Molecular Level
by
O.B. Awojoyogbe
Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria

Understanding of processes such as carrier mobility, electron transfer reactions, chemical reactions in fluids, electron solvation in fluids and electron attachment and localization in clusters rely crucially on the understanding of electron dynamics in fluids at molecular level. Because of its very small mass, electron is an interdependently quantum object and some of its properties such as diffusion coefficient of a solvated electron in water can be explained only by resorting to quantum mechanical formulation. By solving the NMR wave equation we have described the evolution of wavelike properties and find the wave function which can be useful to solve a particular fluid flow problem quantum mechanically. Based on the uncertainty principle, a wave packet is assumed to initially describe the fluid particle (electron) under study. Then, when the particle encounters a force (so its potential energy is no longer zero), the force modifies the wave packet. Finding such propagation techniques, and applying them appropriately can provide useful techniques to find solutions to some physical problems which otherwise could not be easily solved.

Keywords: Quantum mechanics, Electron salvation, Bloch NMR wave equation.

Date received: October 19, 2006