Zero-gravity thermal convection in granular gases

Abstract

We show in this work the existence of gravity-free thermal convection in a 2D granular gas, and describe its peculiar properties. The gas is enclosed in a rectangular region with dissipative sidewalls but no thermal gradient from external energy sources. Strikingly, and contrary to what would be expected from previous knowledge, thermal convection appears, due in this case to the 2D thermal gradient coming from wall-particle inelastic collisions and thermal walls. Our results are obtained by means of an event driven algorithm for inelastic hard disks.