On the theory of brownian motion. VIII. A Brownian particle in a dilute gas with inelastic collisions

Abstract

The Fokker-Planck equation for a heavy particle in a dilute gas of light particles is derived from a Boltzmann equation. Inelastic collisions between the heavy and light particles are considered, and explicit quadratures for the frictional coefficients are given in terms of the scattering kernels. It is shown that the general formulation reduces properly to known results in the cases of pure elastic and pure diffuse scattering, respectively.