Exact steady state solution of the Boltzmann equation: A driven 1-D inelastic Maxwell gas

The exact nonequilibrium steady state solution of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for a driven inelastic Maxwell model was obtained by Ben-Naim and Krapivsky [Phys. Rev. E 61, R5 (2000)] in the form of an infinite product for the Fourier transform of the distribution function $f(c)$. In this paper we have inverted the Fourier transform to express $f(c)$ in the form of an infinite series of exponentially decaying terms. The dominant high energy tail is exponential, $f(c)simeq A_0exp(-a|c|)$, where $aequiv 2/sqrt{1-alpha^2}$ and the amplitude $A_0$ is given in terms of a converging sum. This is explicitly shown in the totally inelastic limit ($alphato 0$) and in the quasi-elastic limit ($alphato 1$). In the latter case, the distribution is dominated by a Maxwellian for a very wide range of velocities, but a crossover from a Maxwellian to an exponential high energy tail exists for velocities $|c-c_0|sim 1/sqrt{q}$ around a crossover velocity $c_0simeq ln q^{-1}/sqrt{q}$, where $qequiv (1-alpha)/2ll 1$. In this crossover region the distribution function is extremely small, $ln f(c_0)simeq q^{-1}ln q$.