Self-diffusion in freely evolving granular gases

A self-diffusion equation for a freely evolving gas of inelastic hard disks or spheres is derived starting from the Boltzmann-Lorentz equation, by means of a Chapman-Enskog expansion in the density gradient of the tagged particles. The self-diffusion coefficient depends on the restitution coefficient explicitly, and also implicitly through the temperature of the system. This latter introduces also a time dependence of the coefficient. As in the elastic case, the results are trivially extended to the Enskog equation. The theoretical predictions are compared with numerical solutions of the kinetic equation obtained by the direct simulation Monte Carlo method, and also with molecular dynamics simulations. An excellent agreement is found, providing mutual support to the different approaches. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-6631(00)00603-6].