Thermal collapse of a granular gas under gravity
arXiv:cond-mat/0605634 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.73.061305
Abstract
Free cooling of a gas of inelastically colliding hard spheres represents a central paradigm of kinetic theory of granular gases. At zero gravity the temperature of a freely cooling homogeneous granular gas follows a power law in time. How does gravity, which brings inhomogeneity, affect the cooling? We combine molecular dynamics simulations, a numerical solution of hydrodynamic equations and an analytic theory to show that a granular gas cooling under gravity undergoes thermal collapse: it cools down to zero temperature and condenses on the bottom of the container in a finite time.
4 pages, 12 eps figures, to appear in PRE
Cited by in corpus (3)
- Formation of density singularities in ideal hydrodynamics of freely cooling inelastic gases: a family of exact solutions
- Attempted density blowup in a freely cooling dilute granular gas: hydrodynamics versus molecular dynamics
- A nonlinear theory of non-stationary low Mach number channel flows of freely cooling nearly elastic granular gases