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Velocity Distribution of a Homogeneously Driven Two-Dimensional Granular Gas
Christian Scholz1, Thorsten Pöschel1
1Institute for Multiscale Simulation, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91052 Erlangen, Germany.
Abstract:
The theory of homogeneously driven granular gases of hard particles predicts that the stationary state is characterized by a velocity distribution function with overpopulated high-energy tails as compared to the exponential decay valid for molecular gases. While this fundamental theoretical result was confirmed by numerous numerical simulations, an experimental confirmation is still missing. Using self-rotating active granular particles, we find a power-law decay of the velocity distribution whose exponent agrees well with the theoretic prediction.
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