On the Einstein relation in a heated granular gas

Recent computer simulation results [Physica A 334 (2004) 513] for granular mixtures subject to stochastic driving have shown the validity of the Einstein relation ε≡D/(T0λ)=1 between the diffusion D and mobility λ coefficients when the temperature of the gas T is replaced by the temperature of the impurity T0 in the usual Einstein relation. This problem is analyzed in this paper by solving analytically the Boltzmann–Lorentz equation from the Chapman–Enskog method. The gas is heated by the action of an external driving force (thermostat) which does work to compensate for the collisional loss of energy. Two types of thermostats are considered: (a) a deterministic force proportional to the particle velocity (Gaussian thermostat), and (b) a white noise external force (stochastic thermostat). The diffusion and mobility coefficients are given in terms of the solutions of two linear integral equations, which are approximately solved up to the second order in a Sonine polynomial expansion. The results show that the violation of the Einstein relation (ε≠1) is only due to the non-Maxwellian behavior of the impurity velocity distribution function (absence of the Gibbs state). At a quantitative level, the kinetic theory results also show that the deviation of ε from 1 is more significant in the case of the Gaussian thermostat than in the case of the stochastic one, in which case the deviation of the Einstein relation is in general smaller than 1%. This conclusion agrees quite well with the results found in computer simulations.