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Soft Matter and Biological Physics

Eur. Phys. J. E 3, 291-294

Free cooling and inelastic collapse of granular gases in high dimensions

E. Trizac - A. Barrat

Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, Bâtiment 210, Université de Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
Emmanuel.Trizac@th.u-psud.fr, Alain.Barrat@th.u-psud.fr

Received 17 April 2000 and Received in final form 7 June 2000

Abstract
The connection between granular gases and sticky gases has recently been considered, leading to the conjecture that inelastic collapse is avoided for space dimensions higher than 4. We report Molecular Dynamics simulations of hard inelastic spheres in dimensions 4, 5 and 6. The evolution of the granular medium is monitored throughout the cooling process. The behaviour is found to be very similar to that of a two-dimensional system, with a shearing-like instability of the velocity field and inelastic collapse when collisions are inelastic enough, showing that the connection with sticky gases needs to be revised.

PACS
47.50.+d Non-Newtonian fluid flows - 05.20.Dd Kinetic theory - 51.10.+y Kinetic and transport theory of gases

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