Dynamics of Freely Cooling Granular Gases
X. Nie, E. Ben-Naim, and S.Y. Chen
We study dynamics of freely cooling granular gases in two-dimensions
using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. We find that for
dilute systems the typical kinetic energy decays algebraically with
time, $E(t)\sim t^{-1}$, in the long time limit. Asymptotically,
velocity statistics are characterized by a universal Gaussian
distribution, in contrast with the exponential high-energy tails
characterizing the early homogeneous regime. We show that in the late
clustering regime particles move coherently as typical local
velocity fluctuations, $\Delta v$, are small compared with the
typical velocity, \hbox{$\Delta v/v\sim t^{-1/4}$}. Furthermore,
locally averaged shear modes dominate over acoustic modes. The
small thermal velocity fluctuations suggest that the system can be
heuristically described by Burgers-like equations.
src,
ps,
pdf