BIASED LATTICE GASES WITH CORRELATED EQUILIBRIUM STATES

The approach to and structure of the equilibrium state is studied for a 7-bit lattice gas with biased forward and backward transition rates by means of mean field theory and computer simulations. If the rate constants obey the factorizability and the detailed balance conditions, the occupations of different velocity directions are uncorrelated, an H-theorem is valid, and a nonuniversal equilibrium state exists that depends explicitly on the transition rates. In case the above conditions are not satisfied, the H-theorem is no longer valid, and mean field theory also predicts nontrivial velocity correlations in postcollision states. The simulations are mainly concentrated on the time dependence of pre- and postcollision velocity correlations on a single node, and on slowly increasing fluctuations that might indicate metastable behavior.