2004/11/30 by E. Ben-Naim, E. Ben‐Naim, Jonathan Machta +2 · 5 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Gas Dynamics and Kinetic Theory #Granular flow and fluidized beds #Jewish Identity and Society #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.138001
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 138001 (2005) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2004/11/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex publication_date 2014/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/28
We find a general class of nontrivial stationary states in inelastic gases where, due to dissipation, energy is transferred from large velocity scales to small velocity scales. These steady states exist for arbitrary collision rules and arbitrary dimension. Their signature is a stationary velocity distribution f(v) with an algebraic high-energy tail, f(v) approximately v(-sigma). The exponent sigma is obtained analytically and it varies continuously with the spatial dimension, the homogeneity index characterizing the collision rate, and the restitution coefficient. We observe these stationary states in numerical simulations in which energy is injected into the system by infrequently boosting particles to high velocities. We propose that these states may be realized experimentally in driven granular systems.