Europhys. Lett., 69 (4), pp. 510-516 (2005)
DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2004-10392-1

Hydrodynamic relaxation of the adiabatic piston

M. Malek Mansour¹, C. Van den Broeck² and E. Kestemont<sup>1

1</sup>  Université Libre de Bruxelles - 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
²  Limburgs Universitair Centrum - B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium

received 23 August 2004; accepted in final form 15 December 2004
published online 14 January 2005

Abstract
We derive a closed deterministic equation for the motion of the two-dimensional adiabatic piston. It predicts a damped oscillatory motion of the piston towards a final rest position, which depends on the initial state. In the limit of large piston mass, the solution of this equation is in quantitative agreement with the results obtained from both hard-disk molecular dynamics and hydrodynamics.

PACS
05.40.-a - Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion.
05.70.Ln - Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics.

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