Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 187, 157-170 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2010-01280-5

Regular Article

Convoluted Gauss-Levy distributions and exploding Coulomb clusters

¹ Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
² Russian Academy of Science, Branch of Physical Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Received: 3 August 2010
Revised: 9 August 2010
Published online: 1 October 2010

Abstract

We study the kinetics and the distributions of nonequilibrium systems including Gaussian and Levy-type stochastic forces. We develop the assumption that deviations from the Maxwell distribution which are often observed in nonequilibrium systems may be described by convoluted Gauss-Levy distributions. We derive these distributions by solving Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations for the velocities including two noise sources, centrally distributed over Levy and Gauss functions. As an application, we estimate the evolution of the velocity distributions of exploding Coulomb clusters analytically and by simulations. We show the development of a shoulder in the distribution which is typical for convoluted Gauss-Levy distributions.