Gas molecule-molecule interaction and the gas-surface scattering effect on the rarefied gas flow through a slit into a vacuum

The effect of the gas molecule-molecule interaction and the gas-surface scattering on the gas flow through a slit into a vacuum are investigated in a wide range of the gas rarefaction using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. To study the gas molecule-molecule interaction influence, we used the variable hard sphere and variable soft sphere models defined for an inverse-power-law potential and the generalized hard sphere model defined for the 12–6 Lennard-Jones potential. The Maxwell, Cercignani-Lampis, and Epstein models were used to simulate the gas-surface scattering. This study demonstrates that the gas molecule-molecule interaction can have a significant influence on the rarefied gas flow through a slit, while the influence of the gas-surface scattering is negligibly small. The presented numerical results are in agreement with the corresponding experimental ones. The article is published in the original.