2009/02/10 by F. Peano, M. Martí, M. Marti +2
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Gas Dynamics and Kinetic Theory #Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #physics.comp-ph #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.79.025701
Accepted for publication as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev. E
arxiv created 2009/02/10 · openalex publication_date 2009/02/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In particle-based algorithms, the effect of binary collisions is commonly described in a statistical way, using Monte Carlo techniques. It is shown that, in the relativistic regime, stringent constraints should be considered on the sampling of particle pairs for collision, which are critical to ensure physically meaningful results, and that nonrelativistic sampling criteria (e.g., uniform random pairing) yield qualitatively wrong results, including equilibrium distributions that differ from the theoretical Jüttner distribution. A general procedure for relativistically consistent algorithms is provided, and verified with three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations, thus opening the way to the numerical exploration of the statistical properties of collisional relativistic systems.