Hard Sphere Dynamics for Normal and Granular Fluids

Abstract

A fluid of N smooth, hard spheres is considered as a model for normal (elastic collisions) and granular (inelastic collisions) fluids. The potential energy is discontinuous for hard spheres so the pairwise forces are singular and the usual forms of Newtonian and Hamiltonian mechanics do not apply. Nevertheless, particle trajectories in the N particle phase space are well defined and the generators for these trajectories can be identified. The first part of this presentation is a review of the generators for the dynamics of observables and probability densities. The new results presented in the second part refer to applications of these generators to the Liouville dynamics for granular fluids. A set of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the generator for this Liouville dynamics is identified in a special "stationary representation". This provides a class of exact solutions to the Liouville equation that are closely related to hydrodynamics for granular fluids.Comment: Submitted for publication in the Proceedings of Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics in Astronomy and Physics, eds. S. Gottesmann and J. R. Buchler (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2005