Uncorrelated jumps model for molecular orientational relaxation in liquid crystals

Molecular reorientation in anisotropic fluids is considered as Markov's stochastic process. Uncorrelated angular jumps and orientational-dependent residence time T(Omega) are assumed. The proposed model is more general than the strong collision one, which can be derived from our approach as a particular case at tau(Omega) = const. New solutions describing molecular reorientation (spherical and symmetric rotor) in anisotropic media are proposed and compared with the results obtained by strong collision and small step rotational diffusion models. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.