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Updated: Apr 29, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Ballistic and diffusive dynamics in a two-dimensional ideal gas of macroscopic chaotic Faraday waves
Kyle J Welch1, Isaac Hastings-Hauss1, Raghuveer Parthasarathy1
1Materials Science Institute and Department of Physics, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.
Abstract:
We have constructed a macroscopic driven system of chaotic Faraday waves whose statistical mechanics, we find, are surprisingly simple, mimicking those of a thermal gas. We use real-time tracking of a single floating probe, energy equipartition, and the Stokes-Einstein relation to define and measure a pseudotemperature and diffusion constant and then self-consistently determine a coefficient of viscous friction for a test particle in this pseudothermal gas. Because of its simplicity, this system can serve as a model for direct experimental investigation of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, much as the ideal gas epitomizes equilibrium statistical mechanics.
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