2002/03/20 by Nikolai V. Brilliantov, Thorsten Poeschel
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech
published as In: D. Reguera, L.L. Bonilla, M. Rubi (Eds.): Coherent Structures in Complex Systems, Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer (2001), p. 408 · 12 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2002/03/20 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
We investigate the evolution of the velocity distribution function of a granular gas composed of viscoelastic particles in the homogeneous cooling state, i.e. before clustering occurs. The deviation of the velocity distribution function from the Maxwellian distribution is quantified by a Sonine polynomials expansion. The first non-vanishing Sonine coefficient a2(t), reveals a complex time dependence which allows to assign the granular gas the property of an age. We discuss the possibility to measure the age of a granular gas.