English

Blast in a One-Dimensional Cold Gas: From Newtonian Dynamics to Hydrodynamics

Statistical Mechanics 2021-06-22 v2 Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

A gas composed of a large number of atoms evolving according to Newtonian dynamics is often described by continuum hydrodynamics. Proving this rigorously is an outstanding open problem, and precise numerical demonstrations of the equivalence of the hydrodynamic and microscopic descriptions are rare. We test this equivalence in the context of the evolution of a blast wave, a problem that is expected to be at the limit where hydrodynamics could work. We study a one-dimensional gas at rest with instantaneous localized release of energy for which the hydrodynamic Euler equations admit a self-similar scaling solution. Our microscopic model consists of hard point particles with alternating masses, which is a nonintegrable system with strong mixing dynamics. Our extensive microscopic simulations find a remarkable agreement with Euler hydrodynamics, with deviations in a small core region that are understood as arising due to heat conduction.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.08321,
  title  = {Blast in a One-Dimensional Cold Gas: From Newtonian Dynamics to Hydrodynamics},
  author = {Subhadip Chakraborti and Santhosh Ganapa and P. L. Krapivsky and Abhishek Dhar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.08321},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

A short version of arXiv:2010.15868

R2 v1 2026-06-23T23:13:16.435Z