Mechanisms of Cluster Formation in Force-Free Granular Gases
The evolution of a force-free granular gas with a constant restitution coefficient is studied by means of granular hydrodynamics. We numerically solve the hydrodynamic equations and analyze the mechanisms of cluster formation. According to our findings, the presently accepted mode-enslaving mechanism may not be responsible for the latter phenomenon. On the contrary, we observe that the cluster formation is mainly driven by shock-waves, which spontaneously...