Paper detail

Heat Conduction in a hard disc system with non-conserved momentum

We describe results of computer simulations of steady state heat transport in a fluid of hard discs undergoing both elastic interparticle collisions and velocity randomizing collisions which do not conserve momentum. The system consists of N discs of radius r in a unit square, periodic in the y-direction and having thermal walls at x = 0 with temperature T0 taking values from 1 to 20 and at x = 1 with T1 = 1. We consider different values of the ratio between randomizing and interparticle collision rates and extrapolate results from different N, to N->infinity, r->0 such that rho=1/2. We find that in the (extrapolated) limit N->infinity, the systems local density and temperature profiles are those of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and obey Fourier's law. The variance of global quantities, such as the total energy, deviates from its local equilibrium value in a form consistent with macroscopic fluctuation theory.