Dynamics of a Massive Piston in an Ideal Gas

N. Chernov, J. L. Lebowitz, Ya. Sinai

Published 2003-01-10Version 1

We study a dynamical system consisting of a massive piston in a cubical container of large size $L$ filled with an ideal gas. The piston has mass $M\sim L^2$ and undergoes elastic collisions with $N\sim L^3$ non-interacting gas particles of mass $m=1$. We find that, under suitable initial conditions, there is, in the limit $L \to \infty$, a scaling regime with time and space scaled by $L$, in which the motion of the piston and the one particle distribution of the gas satisfy autonomous coupled equations (hydrodynamical equations), so that the mechanical trajectory of the piston converges, in probability, to the solution of the hydrodynamical equations for a certain period of time. We also discuss heuristically the dynamics of the system on longer intervals of time.