Stationary states and energy cascades in inelastic gases

We introduce the model of inelastic hard spheres with random restitution coefficient $\alpha$, in order to account for the fact that, in a vertically shaken granular system interacting elastically with the vibrating boundary, the energy injected vertically is transferred to the horizontal degrees of freedom through collisions only, which leads to heating through collisions, i.e. to inelastic horizontal collisions with an effective restitution coefficient that can be larger th...

A gas of particles which collide inelastically if their impact velocity exceeds a certain value is investigated. In difference to common granular gases, cluster formation occurs only as a transient phenomenon. We calculate the decay of temperature due to inelastic collisions. In spite of the drastically reduced dissipation at low temperature the temperature surprisingly converges to zero.

We study the high-energy asymptotics of the steady velocity distributions for model systems of granular media in various regimes. The main results obtained are integral estimates of solutions of the hard-sphere Boltzmann equations, which imply that the velocity distribution functions $f(v)$ behave in a certain sense as $C\exp(-r|v|^s)$ for $|v|$ large. The values of $s$, which we call {\em the orders of tails}, range from $s=1$ to $s=2$, depending on the model of external for...

We study a generic class of inelastic soft sphere models with a binary collision rate $g^\nu$ that depends on the relative velocity $g$. This includes previously studied inelastic hard spheres ($\nu=1$) and inelastic Maxwell molecules ($\nu=0$). We develop a new asymptotic method for analyzing large deviations from Gaussian behavior for the velocity distribution function $f(c)$. The framework is that of the spatially uniform nonlinear Boltzmann equation and special emphasis i...

In the preceding paper (cond-mat/0405252), we have conjectured that the main transport properties of a dilute gas of inelastic hard spheres (IHS) can be satisfactorily captured by an equivalent gas of elastic hard spheres (EHS), provided that the latter are under the action of an effective drag force and their collision rate is reduced by a factor $(1+\alpha)/2$ (where $\alpha$ is the constant coefficient of normal restitution). In this paper we test the above expectation in ...

In this paper, we give an overview of the results established in [3] which provides the first rigorous derivation of hydrodynamic equations from the Boltzmann equation for inelastic hard spheres in 3D. In particular, we obtain a new system of hydrodynamic equations describing granular flows and prove existence of classical solutions to the aforementioned system. One of the main issue is to identify the correct relation between the restitution coefficient (which quantifies the...

We present event-driven simulations of a granular gas of inelastic hard disks with incomplete normal restitution in two dimensions between vibrating walls (without gravity). We measure hydrodynamic quantities such as the stress tensor, density and temperature profiles, as well as velocity distributions. Relating the local pressure to the local temperature and local density, we construct a local constitutive equation. For strong inelasticities the local constitutive relation d...

This paper is concerned with the existence, shape and dynamical stability of infinite-energy equilibria for a general class of spatially homogeneous kinetic equations in space dimensions $d \geq 3$. Our results cover in particular Bobyl\"ev's model for inelastic Maxwell molecules. First, we show under certain conditions on the collision kernel, that there exists an index $\alpha\in(0,2)$ such that the equation possesses a nontrivial stationary solution, which is a scale mixtu...

We study experimentally the particle velocity fluctuations in an electrostatically driven dilute granular gas. The experimentally obtained velocity distribution functions have strong deviations from Maxwellian form in a wide range of parameters. We have found that the tails of the distribution functions are consistent with a stretched exponential law with typical exponents of the order 3/2. Molecular dynamic simulations shows qualitative agreement with experimental data. Our ...

We study a one-dimensional model for granular gases, the so-called Inelastic Maxwell Model. We show theoretically the existence of stationary solutions of the unforced case, that are characterized by an infinite average energy per particle. Moreover, we verify the quasi-stationarity of these states by performing numerical simulations with a finite number of particles, thereby highlighting truncated L\'evy distributions for the velocities.