From pinned billiard balls to partial differential equations
Mathematical Physics
2025-12-02 v3 math.MP
Abstract
We discuss the propagation of kinetic energy through billiard balls fixed in place along a one-dimensional segment. The number of billiard balls is assumed to be large but finite and we assume kinetic energy propagates following the usual collision laws of physics. Assuming an underlying stochastic mean-field for the expectation and the variance of the kinetic energy, we derive a coupled system of nonlinear partial difference equations. Our results are illustrated by numerical simulations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.01503,
title = {From pinned billiard balls to partial differential equations},
author = {Krzysztof Burdzy and Jeremy G. Hoskins and Stefan Steinerberger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.01503},
year = {2025}
}