A gas of inelastic rough spheres admits a spatially homogeneous base state which turns into a hydrodynamic state after a finite relaxation time. We show that this relaxation time is hardly dependent on the degree of inelasticity but increases dramatically with decreasing roughness. An accurate description of translational-rotational velocity correlations at all times is also provided. At a given inelasticity, the roughness parameter can be tuned to produce a huge distortion from the Maxwellian distribution function. The results are obtained from a Grad-like solution of the Boltzmann-Enskog equation complemented by Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations.

• Received 10 September 2013
• Revised 28 November 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.020202