Comparison between Classical-Gas behaviours and Granular-Gas ones in micro-gravity

Abstract

Recent vibration experiments in microgravity are re-examined. We show that they demonstrate that "granular-gas" state exists only in the Knudsen regime, that its excitation is "supersonic" and that the probability density function of the pressure of the gas scales as (Af) to the power 3/2, with A and f being the excitation amplitude and frequency. This paper pursues the description of the experimental results. Then, it compares these ones to what can be predicted from few simple modelling, which are (i) the classical-gas theory and (ii) the thermodynamics of a single particle in a 1d box. The anomalous scaling of pressure fluctuations (Af) to the 3/2 is explained by the crossover from the regime of a single collision during the sampling time, which imposes p scales as_ (Af) at small speed, to a multiple collision imposing p scales as_(Af)_ . Air effect and effect of g-jitter are discussed and quantified. Influence of grain-grain collisions is described on the distribution of speed. Pacs # : 5.40 ; 45.70 ; 62.20 ; 83.70.Fn