Relaxation of a Free-Molecular Gas to Equilibrium Caused by Interaction with Vessel Wall

概要

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A free-molecular gas contained in a static vessel with a uniformtemperature is considered. The approach of the velocity distribution functionof the gas molecules from a given initial distribution to the uniformequilibrium state at rest is investigated numerically under the diffuse reflectionboundary condition. This relaxation is caused by the interaction of gasmolecules with the vessel wall. It is shown that, for a spherical vessel, thevelocity distribution function approaches the final uniform equilibrium distributionin such a way that their difference decreases in proportion to aninverse power of time. This is slower than the known result for a rarefied gaswith molecular collisions.