A parameter characterizing the size of a particle of any shape. For a rigid particle
consisting of mass elements of mass
, each located at a distance
from the centre of mass, the radius of gyration,
, is defined as the square root of the mass-average of
for all the mass elements, i.e.
For a non-rigid particle, an average over all conformations is considered, i.e.
The subscript zero is used to indicate unperturbed dimensions, as in
.
Source:
Cite as:
IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by
A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997).
XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic,
J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8.
https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.
