Exponential law for the equipartition times among translational and vibrational degrees of freedom

Boltzmann and Jeans discussed the possibility of explaining classically the "freezing" of the high frequency degrees of freedom, in spite of its apparent conflict with the equipartition principle. Their proposal is based on the possible existence of extremely long time scales for the energy sharing with such degrees of freedom. This possibility is here supported by numerical simulation on a simple model of diatomic gas. In particular, some evidence is produced that a conjecture by Jeans, on the exponential dependence of the time scales on the frequency, is correct.