The anisotropy of free path in a vibro-fluidized granular gas**Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB215003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91334204), the Fund from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA07080100), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2014M561071).

Abstract

The free path of a vibro-fluidized two-dimensional (2D) inelastic granular gas confined in a rectangular box is investigated by 2D event-driven molecular simulation. By tracking particles in the simulation, we analyze the local free path. The probability distribution of the free path shows a high tail deviating from the exponential prediction. The anisotropy of the free path is found when we separate the free path to x and y components. The probability distribution of y component is exponential, while x component has a high tail. The probability distribution of angle between the relative velocity and the unit vector joined two particle centers deviates from the distribution of two random vectors, indicating the existence of the dynamic heterogeneities in our system. We explain these results by resorting to the kinetic theory with two-peak velocity distribution. The kinetic theory agrees well with the simulation result.