PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Thorsten Pöschel

Publications and source records attributed to Thorsten Pöschel.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Impact of high-energy tails on granular gas properties.

The velocity distribution function of granular gases in the homogeneous cooling state as well as some heated granular gases decays for large velocities as f proportional to exp(-const x v). That is, its high-energy tail is overpopulated as compared with the Maxwell distribution. At the present time, there is no theory to describe the influence of the tail on the kinetic characteristics of granular gases. We develop an approach to quantify the overpopulated tail and analyze its impact on granular gas properties, in particular on the cooling coefficient. We observe and explain anomalously slow relaxation of the velocity distribution function to its steady state.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Self-diffusion in granular gases: Green-Kubo versus Chapman-Enskog.

We study the diffusion of tracers (self-diffusion) in a homogeneously cooling gas of dissipative particles, using the Green-Kubo relation and the Chapman-Enskog approach. The dissipative particle collisions are described by the coefficient of restitution epsilon which for realistic material properties depends on the impact velocity. First, we consider self-diffusion using a constant coefficient of restitution, epsilon=const, as frequently used to simplify the analysis. Second, self-diffusion is studied for a simplified (stepwise) dependence of epsilon on the impact velocity. Finally, diffusion is considered for gases of realistic viscoelastic particles. We find that for epsilon=const both methods lead to the same result for the self-diffusion coefficient. For the case of impact-velocity dependent coefficients of restitution, the Green-Kubo method is, however, either restrictive or too complicated for practical application, therefore we compute the diffusion coefficient using the Chapman-Enskog method. We conclude that in application to granular gases, the Chapman-Enskog approach is preferable for deriving kinetic coefficients.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Transient structures in a granular gas.

A force-free granular gas is considered with an impact-velocity-dependent coefficient of restitution as it follows from the model of viscoelastic particles. We analyze structure formation in this system by means of three independent methods: molecular dynamics, numerical solution of the hydrodynamic equations, and linear stability analysis of these equations. All these approaches indicate that structure formation occurs in force-free granular gases only as a transient process.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Giant fluctuations at a granular phase separation threshold.

We investigate a phase separation instability that occurs in a system of nearly elastically colliding hard spheres driven by a thermal wall. If the aspect ratio of the confining box exceeds a threshold value, granular hydrostatics predict phase separation: the formation of a high-density region coexisting with a low-density region along the wall that is opposite to the thermal wall. Event-driven molecular dynamics simulations confirm this prediction. The theoretical bifurcation curve agrees with the simulations quantitatively well below and well above the threshold. However, in a wide region of aspect ratios around the threshold, the system is dominated by fluctuations, and the hydrostatic theory breaks down. Two possible scenarios of the origin of the giant fluctuations are discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Online tool for the discrimination of equi-distributions.

BACKGROUND: For many applications one wishes to decide whether a certain set of numbers originates from an equiprobability distribution or whether they are unequally distributed. Distributions of relative frequencies may deviate significantly from the corresponding probability distributions due to finite sample effects. Hence, it is not trivial to discriminate between an equiprobability distribution and non-equally distributed probabilities when knowing only frequencies. RESULTS: Based on analytical results we provide a software tool which allows to decide whether data correspond to an equiprobability distribution. The tool is available at http://bioinf.charite.de/equifreq/. CONCLUSIONS: Its application is demonstrated for the distribution of point mutations in coding genes.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed2003

Close-packed floating clusters: granular hydrodynamics beyond the freezing point?

Monodisperse granular flows often develop regions with hexagonal close packing of particles. We investigate this effect in a system of inelastic hard spheres driven from below by a "thermal" plate. Molecular dynamics simulations show, in a wide range of parameters, a close-packed cluster supported by a low-density region. Surprisingly, the steady-state density profile, including the close-packed cluster part, is well described by a variant of Navier-Stokes granular hydrodynamics (NSGH). We suggest a simple explanation for the success of NSGH beyond the freezing point.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Hydrodynamics and transport coefficients for dilute granular gases.

The hydrodynamics of granular gases of viscoelastic particles, whose collision is described by an impact-velocity dependent coefficient of restitution, which is developed using the Chapman-Enskog approach. We derive the hydrodynamic equations and the according transport coefficients with the assumption that the shape of the velocity distribution function follows adiabatically the decaying temperature. We show numerically that this approximation is justified up to intermediate dissipation. The transport coefficients and the coefficient of cooling are expressed in terms of the elastic and dissipative parameters of the particle material and by the gas parameters. The dependence of these coefficients on temperature differs qualitatively from that obtained with the simplifying assumption of a constant coefficient of restitution which was used in previous studies. The approach formulated for gases of viscoelastic particles may be applied also for other impact-velocity dependencies of the restitution coefficient.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Kinetics of prion growth.

We study the kinetics of prion fibril growth, described by the nucleated polymerization model analytically and by means of numerical experiments. The elementary processes of prion fibril formation lead us to a set of differential equations for the number of fibrils, their total mass, and the number of prion monomers. In difference to previous studies we analyze this set by explicitly taking into account the time-dependence of the prion monomer concentration. The theoretical results agree with experimental data, whereas the generally accepted hypothesis of constant monomer concentration leads to a fibril growth behavior which is not in agreement with experiments. The obtained size distribution of the prion fibril aggregates is shifted significantly toward shorter lengths as compared to earlier results, which leads to a enhanced infectivity of the prion material. Finally, we study the effect of filtering of the inoculated material on the incubation time of the disease.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2003

How to decide whether small samples comply with an equidistribution.

The decision whether a measured distribution complies with an equidistribution is a central element of many biostatistical methods. High throughput differential expression measurements, for instance, necessitate to judge possible over-representation of genes. The reliability of this judgement, however, is strongly affected when rarely expressed genes are pooled. We propose a method that can be applied to frequency ranked distributions and that yields a simple but efficient criterion to assess the hypothesis of equiprobable expression levels. By applying our technique to surrogate data we exemplify how the decision criterion can differentiate between a true equidistribution and a triangular distribution. The distinction succeeds even for small sample sizes where standard tests of significance (e.g. chi(2)) fail. Our method will have a major impact on several problems of computational biology where rare events baffle a reliable assessment of frequency distributions. The program package is available upon request from the authors.

Biometry↗
PubMed2002

Hydrodynamics of granular gases of viscoelastic particles.

Our study examines the long-time behaviour of a force-free granular gas of viscoelastic particles, for which the coefficient of restitution depends on the impact velocity, as it follows from the solution of the impact problem for viscoelastic spheres. Starting from the Boltzmann equation, we derived the hydrodynamic equations and obtained microscopic expressions for the transport coefficients in terms of the elastic and dissipative parameters of the particle material. We performed the stability analysis of the linearized set of equations and found that any inhomogeneities and vortices vanish after a long time and the system approaches the flow-free stage of homogeneous density. This behaviour is in contrast to that of a gas consisting of particles which interact via a (non-realistic) constant coefficient of restitution, for which inhomogeneities (clusters) and vortex patterns have been proven to arise and to continuously develop.

Colloids↗