THE ANALYSIS OF PARTICLE SYSTEMS USING COMPUTER SIMULATIONS

Emily Capra, Jen Chen, Elizabeth Germino, Liron Greenstein, Anson Hook, Sarah Pfau, Javier Sanchez, Shishir Sharma, Kyle Viswanathan, and William Wachter

Advisor: Dr. Paul V. Quinn
Teaching Assistant: Sally Warner

In this paper, we present a simple method of measuring the isothermal pressure of a system of particles. These systems include the ideal gas, the excluded volume principle, and hard spheres under gravity, which is an important characteristic of granular systems. We chose a method using a Monte Carlo simulation to model the particles' movement. We found that the results of our program reflected theoretical predictions and also mirrored those obtained by running Molecular Dynamics simulations. As a result, we conclude that our program provides a simple but accurate model for the behavior of various particle systems including a granular system under the influence of gravity.

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