NONEQUILIBRIUM STATISTICAL-MECHANICS OF PREASYMPTOTIC DISPERSION

Turbulent transport in bulk-phase fluids and transport in porous media with fractal character involve fluctuations on all space and time scales. Consequently one anticipates constitutive theories should be nonlocal in character and involve constitutive parameters with arbitrary wavevector and frequency dependence. We provide here a nonequilibrium statistical mechanical theory of transport which involves both diffusive and convective mixing (dispersion) at all scales. The theory is based on a generalization of classical approaches used in molecular hydrodynamics and on time-correlation functions defined in terms of nonequilibrium expectations. The resulting constitutive laws are nonlocal and constitutive parameters are wavevector and frequency dependent. All results reduce to their convolution-Fickian, quasi-Fickian, or Fickian counterparts in the appropriate limits.