orientationally

Orientationally is an adverb used to describe actions, measurements, or properties with regard to the orientation of objects or systems in space. It is formed from orientational, which relates to orientation, and the adverbial suffix -ly. In scientific contexts, orientationally describes how a quantity or state depends on or is averaged over the directions of constituent parts, such as molecules, spins, grains, or fibers.

In physics and chemistry, many systems have orientational degrees of freedom. For example, in liquid crystals, molecules may align along a common direction, exhibiting orientational order without long-range positional order. Quantities are often described orientationally, or after orientational averaging, to account for random orientations in a sample. The orientational order parameter summarizes the degree of alignment, and orientational correlation functions describe how orientation persists over distance.

In spectroscopy and scattering, measurements on isotropic or randomly oriented ensembles are described orientationally averaged. For instance, Raman or infrared intensities and X-ray scattering patterns can be obtained by averaging over all possible molecular or grain orientations, yielding a sample-independent spectrum or pattern. Conversely, orientationally dependent measurements probe anisotropy by fixing or controlling the orientation relative to a field or polarization.

In crystallography and materials science, orientation distribution functions describe the probability of different grain or crystal orientations; properties such as elastic stiffness or conductivity can be anisotropic and are often discussed in an orientationally dependent framework. Experimental and computational analyses frequently report quantities in their orientationally averaged form to reflect bulk, isotropic behavior.

In short, orientationally relates to how orientation influences physical properties and how such effects are described, measured, or averaged in diverse fields.