Stokes’s law for the friction of a sphere in water has been argued to work down to molecular scales, provided the effective hydrodynamic radius includes the hydration layer. In interpretations of experiments and in theoretical models, it is tacitly assumed that the solvent friction experienced by a solute does not depend on whether an external confinement potential acts on the solute. Using a novel method to extract the friction memory function from molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the solvent friction of a strongly harmonically confined methane molecule in water increases by 60% compared to its free-solution value, which is caused by an amplification of the slowest component of the memory function. The friction enhancement occurs for potential strengths typical of physical and chemical bonds and is accompanied by a significant slowing-down of the hydration water dynamics. Thus, the solvent friction acting on molecular solutes is not determined by solvent properties and solute-solvent interactions alone but results from the coupling between solute and solvent dynamics and thereby can be tuned by an external potential acting on the solute. This also explains why simulations of positionally constrained solutes do not reproduce free-solution diffusivities. Dynamic scaling arguments suggest similar effects also for macromolecular solutes provided the solution viscosity is sufficiently enhanced.
