Lack of collective motion in granular gases of rotators

Abstract

The dynamics of gases made of particles interacting dissipatively—known as granular gases—can be fully described by the translational and rotational motion of the individual particles; however, most of the results in the field refer to the limit of smooth particles, which implies that the rotational degrees of freedom are suppressed. Here we investigate the opposite limit: we consider a granular gas where the translational degrees of freedom are suppressed, and the key degrees of freedom are rotational. Our results indicate that for many-particle systems of pure rotators collective effects almost completely suppressed. This is in a sharp contrast to granular gases of smooth particles and other conventional matter where the translational degrees of freedom dominate the kinetics.