A green function approach to shear viscosity coefficient

Modified transport equations are derived from Kadanoff and Baym kinetic equations, suitable for the study of thermal transport coefficients. These equations include the Hartree average energy term which has been ignored in the previous studies of thermal transport coefficients. They are linearised and the successive perturbation method is employed to solve them. The solutions are applied to shear viscosity coefficient of gases and the results are compared with the recent experimental measurements for several complex and simple gases. The potential assumed is a hard core one with a perturbation tail. The agreements are particularly good for gases with low molecular weight and in the high temperature range. For complex molecules even in the low temperature range, the agreement is better than the previous calculations. The formula derived yields the explicit temperature dependence of the viscosity coefficient.