Statistical kinetic treatment of relativistic binary collisions

In particle-based algorithms, the effect of binary collisions is commonly described in a statistical way, using Monte Carlo techniques. It is shown that, in the relativistic regime, stringent constraints should be considered on the sampling of particle pairs for collision, which are critical to ensu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics, 2009-02, Vol.79 (2 Pt 2), p.025701-025701, Article 025701
Main Authors: Peano, F, Marti, M, Silva, L O, Coppa, G
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In particle-based algorithms, the effect of binary collisions is commonly described in a statistical way, using Monte Carlo techniques. It is shown that, in the relativistic regime, stringent constraints should be considered on the sampling of particle pairs for collision, which are critical to ensure physically meaningful results, and that nonrelativistic sampling criteria (e.g., uniform random pairing) yield qualitatively wrong results, including equilibrium distributions that differ from the theoretical Jüttner distribution. A general procedure for relativistically consistent algorithms is provided, and verified with three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations, thus opening the way to the numerical exploration of the statistical properties of collisional relativistic systems.
ISSN:1539-3755
1550-2376
DOI:10.1103/physreve.79.025701