Random inelasticity and velocity fluctuations in a driven granular gas

We analyze the deviations from Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics found in recent experiments studying velocity distributions in two-dimensional granular gases driven into a non-equilibrium stationary state by a strong vertical vibration. We show that in its simplest version, the “stochastic thermostat” model of heated inelastic hard spheres, contrary to what has been hitherto stated, is incompatible with the experimental data, although predicting a reminiscent high-velocity stretched-exponential behavior with an exponent 3/2. The experimental observations lead to refine a recently proposed random restitution coefficient model. Very good agreement is then found with experimental velocity distributions within this framework, which appears self-consistent and further provides relevant probes to investigate the universality of the velocity statistics. Received: 27 May 2002 / Accepted: 6 May 2003 / Published online: 27 May 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: Alain.Barrat@th.u-psud.fr