Inelastic Maxwell Models Research Articles

Exact Transport Coefficients from the Inelastic Rough Maxwell Model of a Granular Gas

Granular gases demand models capable of capturing their distinct characteristics. The widely employed inelastic hard-sphere model (IHSM) introduces complexities that are compounded when incorporating realistic features like surface roughness and rotational degrees of freedom, resulting in the more intricate inelastic rough hard-sphere model (IRHSM). This paper focuses on the inelastic rough Maxwell model (IRMM), presenting a more tractable alternative to the IRHSM and enabling exact solutions. Building on the foundation of the inelastic Maxwell model (IMM) applied to granular gases, the IRMM extends the mathematical representation to encompass surface roughness and rotational degrees of freedom. The primary objective is to provide exact expressions for the Navier–Stokes–Fourier transport coefficients within the IRMM, including the shear and bulk viscosities, the thermal and diffusive heat conductivities, and the cooling-rate transport coefficient. In contrast to earlier approximations in the IRHSM, our study unveils inherent couplings, such as shear viscosity to spin viscosity and heat conductivities to counterparts associated with a torque-vorticity vector. These exact findings provide valuable insights into refining the Sonine approximation applied to the IRHSM, contributing to a deeper understanding of the transport properties in granular gases with realistic features.

Exact Results for Non-Newtonian Transport Properties in Sheared Granular Suspensions: Inelastic Maxwell Models and BGK-Type Kinetic Model.

The Boltzmann kinetic equation for dilute granular suspensions under simple (or uniform) shear flow (USF) is considered to determine the non-Newtonian transport properties of the system. In contrast to previous attempts based on a coarse-grained description, our suspension model accounts for the real collisions between grains and particles of the surrounding molecular gas. The latter is modeled as a bath (or thermostat) of elastic hard spheres at a given temperature. Two independent but complementary approaches are followed to reach exact expressions for the rheological properties. First, the Boltzmann equation for the so-called inelastic Maxwell models (IMM) is considered. The fact that the collision rate of IMM is independent of the relative velocity of the colliding spheres allows us to exactly compute the collisional moments of the Boltzmann operator without the knowledge of the distribution function. Thanks to this property, the transport properties of the sheared granular suspension can be exactly determined. As a second approach, a Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK)-type kinetic model adapted to granular suspensions is solved to compute the velocity moments and the velocity distribution function of the system. The theoretical results (which are given in terms of the coefficient of restitution, the reduced shear rate, the reduced background temperature, and the diameter and mass ratios) show, in general, a good agreement with the approximate analytical results derived for inelastic hard spheres (IHS) by means of Grad's moment method and with computer simulations performed in the Brownian limiting case (m/mg→∞, where mg and m are the masses of the particles of the molecular and granular gases, respectively). In addition, as expected, the IMM and BGK results show that the temperature and non-Newtonian viscosity exhibit an S shape in a plane of stress-strain rate (discontinuous shear thickening, DST). The DST effect becomes more pronounced as the mass ratio m/mg increases.

High-Degree Collisional Moments of Inelastic Maxwell Mixtures—Application to the Homogeneous Cooling and Uniform Shear Flow States

The Boltzmann equation for d-dimensional inelastic Maxwell models is considered to determine the collisional moments of the second, third and fourth degree in a granular binary mixture. These collisional moments are exactly evaluated in terms of the velocity moments of the distribution function of each species when diffusion is absent (mass flux of each species vanishes). The corresponding associated eigenvalues as well as cross coefficients are obtained as functions of the coefficients of normal restitution and the parameters of the mixture (masses, diameters and composition). The results are applied to the analysis of the time evolution of the moments (scaled with a thermal speed) in two different nonequilibrium situations: the homogeneous cooling state (HCS) and the uniform (or simple) shear flow (USF) state. In the case of the HCS, in contrast to what happens for simple granular gases, it is demonstrated that the third and fourth degree moments could diverge in time for given values of the parameters of the system. An exhaustive study on the influence of the parameter space of the mixture on the time behavior of these moments is carried out. Then, the time evolution of the second- and third-degree velocity moments in the USF is studied in the tracer limit (namely, when the concentration of one of the species is negligible). As expected, while the second-degree moments are always convergent, the third-degree moments of the tracer species can be also divergent in the long time limit.

Granular Gas of Inelastic and Rough Maxwell Particles

The most widely used model for granular gases is perhaps the inelastic hard-sphere model (IHSM), where the grains are assumed to be perfectly smooth spheres colliding with a constant coefficient of normal restitution. A much more tractable model is the inelastic Maxwell model (IMM), in which the velocity-dependent collision rate is replaced by an effective mean-field constant. This simplification has been taken advantage of by many researchers to find a number of exact results within the IMM. On the other hand, both the IHSM and IMM neglect the impact of roughness—generally present in real grains—on the dynamic properties of a granular gas. This is remedied by the inelastic rough hard-sphere model (IRHSM), where, apart from the coefficient of normal restitution, a constant coefficient of tangential restitution is introduced. In parallel to the simplification carried out when going from the IHSM to the IMM, we propose in this paper an inelastic rough Maxwell model (IRMM) as a simplification of the IRHSM. The tractability of the proposed model is illustrated by the exact evaluation of the collisional moments of first and second degree, and the most relevant ones of third and fourth degree. The results are applied to the evaluation of the rotational-to-translational temperature ratio and the velocity cumulants in the homogeneous cooling state.

Unified hydrodynamic description for driven and undriven inelastic Maxwell mixtures at low density

A hydrodynamic description for inelastic Maxwell mixtures driven by a stochastic bath with friction is derived. Contrary to previous works where constitutive relations for the fluxes were restricted to states near the homogeneous steady state, here the set of Boltzmann kinetic equations is solved by means of the Chapman–Enskog method by considering a more general time-dependent reference state. Due to this choice, the transport coefficients are given in terms of the solutions of a set of nonlinear differential equations which must be in general numerically solved. The solution to these equations gives the transport coefficients in terms of the parameters of the mixture (masses, diameters, concentration, and coefficients of restitution) and the time-dependent (scaled) parameter ξ* which determines the influence of the thermostat on the system. The Navier–Stokes transport coefficients are exactly obtained in the special cases of undriven mixtures (ξ* = 0) and driven mixtures under steady conditions (, where is the value of the reduced noise strength at the steady state). As a complement, the results for inelastic Maxwell models (IMM) in both undriven and driven steady states are compared against approximate results for inelastic hard spheres (IHS) (Khalil and Garzó (2013 Phys. Rev. E 88 052201)). While the IMM predictions for the diffusion transport coefficients show an excellent agreement with those derived for IHS, significant quantitative differences are specially found in the case of the heat flux transport coefficients.

Non-Newtonian rheology in inertial suspensions of inelastic rough hard spheres under simple shear flow

Non-Newtonian transport properties of an inertial suspension of inelastic rough hard spheres under simple shear flow are determined by the Boltzmann kinetic equation. The influence of the interstitial gas on rough hard spheres is modeled via a Fokker–Planck generalized equation for rotating spheres accounting for the coupling of both the translational and rotational degrees of freedom of grains with the background viscous gas. The generalized Fokker–Planck term is the sum of two ordinary Fokker–Planck differential operators in linear v and angular ω velocity space. As usual, each Fokker–Planck operator is constituted by a drag force term (proportional to v and/or ω) plus a stochastic Langevin term defined in terms of the background temperature Tex. The Boltzmann equation is solved by two different but complementary approaches: (i) by means of Grad’s moment method and (ii) by using a Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK)-type kinetic model adapted to inelastic rough hard spheres. As in the case of smooth inelastic hard spheres, our results show that both the temperature and the non-Newtonian viscosity increase drastically with an increase in the shear rate (discontinuous shear thickening effect) while the fourth-degree velocity moments also exhibit an S-shape. In particular, while high levels of roughness may slightly attenuate the jump of the viscosity in comparison to the smooth case, the opposite happens for the rotational temperature. As an application of these results, a linear stability analysis of the steady simple shear flow solution is also carried out showing that there are regions of the parameter space where the steady solution becomes linearly unstable. The present work extends previous theoretical results (H. Hayakawa and S. Takada, “Kinetic theory of discontinuous rheological phase transition for a dilute inertial suspension,” Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2019, 083J01 and R. G. González and V. Garzó, “Simple shear flow in granular suspensions: Inelastic Maxwell models and BGK-type kinetic model,” J. Stat. Mech. 2019, 013206) to rough spheres.

Simple shear flow in granular suspensions: inelastic Maxwell models and BGK-type kinetic model

The Boltzmann kinetic equation for low-density granular suspensions under simple shear flow is considered to determine the velocity moments through the fourth degree. The influence of the interstitial gas on solid particles is modeled by a viscous drag force term plus a stochastic Langevin-like term. Two independent but complementary approaches are followed to achieve exact results. First, to keep the structure of the Boltzmann collision operator, the so-called inelastic Maxwell models (IMM) are considered. In this model, since the collision rate is independent of the relative velocity of the two colliding particles, the forms of the collisional moments can be obtained without the knowledge of the velocity distribution function. As a complement of the previous effort, a Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK)-type kinetic model adapted to granular gases is solved to get the velocity moments of the velocity distribution function. The analytical predictions of the rheological properties (which are exactly obtained in terms of the coefficient of restitution and the reduced shear rate ) show in general an excellent agreement with event-driven simulations performed for inelastic hard spheres. In particular, both theoretical approaches show clearly that the temperature and non-Newtonian viscosity exhibit an shape in a plane of stress–strain rate (discontinuous shear thickening effect). With respect to the fourth-degree velocity moments, we find that while those moments have unphysical values for IMM in a certain region of the parameter space of the system, they are well defined functions of both and in the case of the BGK kinetic model. The explicit shear-rate dependence of the fourth-degree moments beyond this critical region is also obtained and compared against available computer simulations.

Exact Stationary and Non-stationary Solutions to Inelastic Maxwell Model with Infinite Energy

The one-dimensional inelastic Boltzmann equation with a constant collision rate (the Maxwell model) is considered. It is shown that for special values of restitution parameter there exists a stationary solution with the characteristic function in the form \(e^{-P(\log (z))z},\) where P is a periodic function. The corresponding distribution function belongs to a one special class of stochastic processes termed as a generalized stable in the probability theory. The Fourier transform of the non-stationary equation has the solution \(\bigl (1+P(\log (z))z\bigr )e^{-Q(\log (z))z}\). It is proved that this solution is a characteristic function if periodic functions P, Q satisfy some not very restrictive conditions. The stationary and non-stationary solutions correspond to a gas with infinite temperature.

Tracer diffusion coefficients in a sheared inelastic Maxwell gas

We study the transport properties of an impurity in a sheared granular gas, in the framework of the Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models. We investigate here the impact of a nonequilibrium phase transition found in such systems, where the tracer species carries a finite fraction of the total kinetic energy (ordered phase). To this end, the diffusion coefficients are first obtained for a granular binary mixture in spatially inhomogeneous states close to the simple shear flow. In this situation, the set of coupled Boltzmann equations are solved by means of a Chapman–Enskog-like expansion around the (local) shear flow distributions for each species, thereby retaining all the hydrodynamic orders in the shear rate a. Due to the anisotropy induced by the shear flow, three tensorial quantities Dij, Dp,ij, and DT,ij are required to describe the mass transport process instead of the conventional scalar coefficients. These tensors are given in terms of the solutions of a set of coupled algebraic equations, which can be exactly solved as functions of the shear rate a, the coefficients of restitution and the parameters of the mixture (masses and composition). Once the forms of Dij, Dp,ij, and DT,ij are obtained for arbitrary mole fraction (where nr is the number density of species r), the tracer limit () is carefully considered for the above three diffusion tensors. Explicit forms for these coefficients are derived showing that their shear rate dependence is significantly affected by the order-disorder transition.

Generalized transport coefficients for inelastic Maxwell mixtures under shear flow.

The Boltzmann equation framework for inelastic Maxwell models is considered to determine the transport coefficients associated with the mass, momentum, and heat fluxes of a granular binary mixture in spatially inhomogeneous states close to the simple shear flow. The Boltzmann equation is solved by means of a Chapman-Enskog-type expansion around the (local) shear flow distributions f(r)(0) for each species that retain all the hydrodynamic orders in the shear rate. Due to the anisotropy induced by the shear flow, tensorial quantities are required to describe the transport processes instead of the conventional scalar coefficients. These tensors are given in terms of the solutions of a set of coupled equations, which can be analytically solved as functions of the shear rate a, the coefficients of restitution α(rs), and the parameters of the mixture (masses, diameters, and composition). Since the reference distribution functions f(r)(0) apply for arbitrary values of the shear rate and are not restricted to weak dissipation, the corresponding generalized coefficients turn out to be nonlinear functions of both a and α(rs). The dependence of the relevant elements of the three diffusion tensors on both the shear rate and dissipation is illustrated in the tracer limit case, the results showing that the deviation of the generalized transport coefficients from their forms for vanishing shear rates is in general significant. A comparison with the previous results obtained analytically for inelastic hard spheres by using Grad's moment method is carried out, showing a good agreement over a wide range of values for the coefficients of restitution. Finally, as an application of the theoretical expressions derived here for the transport coefficients, thermal diffusion segregation of an intruder immersed in a granular gas is also studied.

Inelastic Maxwell models for monodisperse gas–solid flows

The Boltzmann equation for d-dimensional inelastic Maxwell models is considered to analyze transport properties for monodisperse gas–solid suspensions. The influence of the interstitial gas phase on the dynamics of solid particles is modeled via a viscous drag force. The Chapman–Enskog method is applied to solve the inelastic Boltzmann equation to first order in the deviations of the hydrodynamic fields from their values in the homogeneous cooling state. Explicit expressions for the Navier–Stokes transport coefficients are exactly obtained in terms of both the coefficient of restitution and the friction coefficient characterizing the amplitude of the external force. The conditions under which a hydrodynamic regime independent of the initial conditions is reached are widely discussed. Finally, the results derived here are compared with those previously obtained for inelastic hard spheres in steady state conditions by using the so-called first Sonine approximation.

Driven inelastic Maxwell gases.

We consider the inelastic Maxwell model, which consists of a collection of particles that are characterized by only their velocities and evolving through binary collisions and external driving. At any instant, a particle is equally likely to collide with any of the remaining particles. The system evolves in continuous time with mutual collisions and driving taken to be point processes with rates τ(c)(-1) and τ(w)(-1), respectively. The mutual collisions conserve momentum and are inelastic, with a coefficient of restitution r. The velocity change of a particle with velocity v, due to driving, is taken to be Δv=-(1+r(w))v+η, where r(w)∈[-1,1] and η is Gaussian white noise. For r(w)∈(0,1], this driving mechanism mimics the collision with a randomly moving wall, where r(w) is the coefficient of restitution. Another special limit of this driving is the so-called Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process given by dv/dt=-Γv+η. We show that while the equations for the n-particle velocity distribution functions (n=1,2,...) do not close, the joint evolution equations of the variance and the two-particle velocity correlation functions close. With the exact formula for the variance we find that, for r(w)≠-1, the system goes to a steady state. Also we obtain the exact tail of the velocity distribution in the steady state. On the other hand, for r(w)=-1, the system does not have a steady state. Similarly, the system goes to a steady state for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck driving with Γ≠0, whereas for the purely diffusive driving (Γ=0), the system does not have a steady state.

Navier–Stokes transport coefficients for driven inelastic Maxwell models

.We calculate in this work the Navier–Stokes transport coefficients from the Boltzmann equation for d-dimensional inelastic Maxwell models. By granular gas we mean here a low density system of identical spheres that lose a fraction of their kinetic energy after collisions. In the present work, the granular gas is fluidized by the presence of a thermostat that aids the system to reach a steady state. The thermostat is composed of two terms: a random force and a drag force. The combined action of both forces, which act homogeneously on the granular gas, tries to mimic the interaction of the set of particles with a surrounding fluid. The Chapman–Enskog method is applied to solve the inelastic Boltzmann equation to first order in the deviations of the hydrodynamic fields from their values in the homogeneous steady state. Since the collisional cooling cannot be compensated locally for by the heat produced by the driving forces, the reference (zeroth-order) distribution function f (0) depends on time through its dependence on the granular temperature. To simplify the analysis and obtain explicit forms for the transport coefficients, the steady state conditions are considered. A comparison with previous results obtained for inelastic hard spheres is also carried out.

Hydrodynamic Burnett equations for inelastic Maxwell models of granular gases.

The hydrodynamic Burnett equations and the associated transport coefficients are exactly evaluated for generalized inelastic Maxwell models. In those models, the one-particle distribution function obeys the inelastic Boltzmann equation, with a velocity-independent collision rate proportional to the γ power of the temperature. The pressure tensor and the heat flux are obtained to second order in the spatial gradients of the hydrodynamic fields with explicit expressions for all the Burnett transport coefficients as functions of γ, the coefficient of normal restitution, and the dimensionality of the system. Some transport coefficients that are related in a simple way in the elastic limit become decoupled in the inelastic case. As a byproduct, existing results in the literature for three-dimensional elastic systems are recovered, and a generalization to any dimension of the system is given. The structure of the present results is used to estimate the Burnett coefficients for inelastic hard spheres.

Collisional rates for the inelastic Maxwell model: application to the divergence of anisotropic high-order velocity moments in the homogeneous cooling state

The collisional rates associated with the isotropic velocity moments $<V^{2r}>$ and the anisotropic moments $<V^{2r}V_i>$ and $<V^{2r}(V_iV_j-d^{-1}V^2\delta_{ij})>$ are exactly derived in the case of the inelastic Maxwell model as functions of the exponent $r$, the coefficient of restitution $\alpha$, and the dimensionality $d$. The results are applied to the evolution of the moments in the homogeneous free cooling state. It is found that, at a given value of $\alpha$, not only the isotropic moments of a degree higher than a certain value diverge but also the anisotropic moments do. This implies that, while the scaled distribution function has been proven in the literature to converge to the isotropic self-similar solution in well-defined mathematical terms, nonzero initial anisotropic moments do not decay with time. On the other hand, our results show that the ratio between an anisotropic moment and the isotropic moment of the same degree tends to zero.

Impurity in a sheared inelastic Maxwell gas

The Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is considered in order to investigate the dynamics of an impurity (or intruder) immersed in a granular gas driven by a uniform shear flow. The analysis is based on an exact solution of the Boltzmann equation for a granular binary mixture. It applies for conditions arbitrarily far from equilibrium (arbitrary values of the shear rate a) and for arbitrary values of the parameters of the mixture (particle masses m(i), mole fractions x(i), and coefficients of restitution α(ij)). In the tracer limit where the mole fraction of the intruder species vanishes, a nonequilibrium phase transition takes place. We thereby identify ordered phases where the intruder bears a finite contribution to the properties of the mixture, in a region of parameter space that is worked out in detail. These findings extend previous results obtained for ordinary Maxwell gases, and further show that dissipation leads to new ordered phases.

Hydrodynamics of Inelastic Maxwell Models

An overview of recent results pertaining to the hydrodynamic description (both Newtonian and non-Newtonian) of granular gases described by the Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is presented. The use of this mathematical model allows us to get exact results for different problems. First, the Navier--Stokes constitutive equations with explicit expressions for the corresponding transport coefficients are derived by applying the Chapman--Enskog method to inelastic gases. Second, the non-Newtonian rheological properties in the uniform shear flow (USF) are obtained in the steady state as well as in the transient unsteady regime. Next, an exact solution for a special class of Couette flows characterized by a uniform heat flux is worked out. This solution shares the same rheological properties as the USF and, additionally, two generalized transport coefficients associated with the heat flux vector can be identified. Finally, the problem of small spatial perturbations of the USF is analyzed with a Chapman--Enskog-like method and generalized (tensorial) transport coefficients are obtained.

Breakdown of hydrodynamics in the inelastic Maxwell model of granular gases

Both the right and left eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the linearized homogeneous Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell molecules corresponding to the hydrodynamic modes are calculated. Also, some nonhydrodynamic modes are identified. It is shown that below a critical value of the parameter characterizing the inelasticity, one of the kinetic modes decays slower than one of the hydrodynamic ones. As a consequence, a closed hydrodynamic description does not exist in that regime. Some implications of this behavior on the formally computed Navier-Stokes transport coefficients are discussed.

Rheological properties for inelastic Maxwell mixtures under shear flow

The Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is considered to determine the rheological properties in a granular binary mixture in the simple shear flow state. The transport coefficients (shear viscosity and viscometric functions) are exactly evaluated in terms of the coefficients of restitution, the (reduced) shear rate and the parameters of the mixture (particle masses, diameters and concentration). The results show that in general, for a given value of the coefficients of restitution, the above transport properties decrease with increasing shear rate.

Convergence to self-similarity for the Boltzmann equation for strongly inelastic Maxwell molecules

We prove propagation of regularity, uniformly in time, for the scaled solutions of the inelastic Maxwell model for any value of the coefficient of restitution. The result follows from the uniform in time control of the tails of the Fourier transform of the solution, normalized in order to have constant energy. By standard arguments this implies the convergence of the scaled solution towards the stationary state in Sobolev and L1 norms in the case of regular initial data as well as the convergence of the original solution to the corresponding self-similar cooling state. In the case of weak inelasticity, similar results have been established by Carlen, Carrillo and Carvalho (2009) in [11] via a precise control of the growth of the Fisher information.