KINETIC THEORY OF GRANULAR GASES

Granular gases, made up of particles behave differently than gases made up of molecules, most notably by being inelastic. Other interesting properties that have been discovered are inherent cluster instability, non-Maxwellilan velocity distribution, spontaneous formation of vortices, and anomalous diffusion. Brillianatov and Poschel (both Humbolt U. Berlin-Charite) provide a textbook for an introductory undergraduate one-semester course on the statistical mechanics and kinetic theory of granular gases. Students should need no more mathematics or physics than is necessary for a typical undergraduate physics course.