  Diffusive properties of a monodisperse system of interacting particles
confined to a \textit{quasi}-one-dimensional (Q1D) channel are studied using
molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We calculate numerically the mean-squared
displacement (MSD) and investigate the influence of the width of the channel
(or the strength of the confinement potential) on diffusion in finite-size
channels of different shapes (i.e., straight and circular). The transition from
single-file diffusion (SFD) to the two-dimensional diffusion regime is
investigated. This transition (regarding the calculation of the scaling
exponent ($\alpha$) of the MSD $<\Delta x^{2}(t)>$ $\propto t^{\alpha}$) as a
function of the width of the channel, is shown to change depending on the
channel's confinement profile. In particular the transition can be either
smooth (i.e., for a parabolic confinement potential) or rather sharp/stepwise
(i.e., for a hard-wall potential), as distinct from infinite channels where
this transition is abrupt. This result can be explained by qualitatively
different distributions of the particle density for the different confinement
potentials.
