Velocity Distributions of Granular Gases with Drag and with Long-Range Interactions
Velocity Distributions of Granular Gases with Drag and with Long-Range Interactions
We study velocity statistics of electrostatically driven granular gases. For two different experiments, (i) nonmagnetic particles in a viscous fluid and (ii) magnetic particles in air, the velocity distribution is non-Maxwellian, and its high-energy tail is exponential, $P(v)\ensuremath{\sim}\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}|v|)$. This behavior is consistent with the kinetic theory of driven dissipative particles. …