Generalized Thermal Lattice Gases

Abstract

We show how to employ thermal lattice gas models to describe non-equilibrium phenomena. This is achieved by relaxing the restrictions of the usual micro-canonical ensemble for these models via the introduction of thermal ``demons'' in the style of Creutz. Within the Lattice Boltzmann approximation, we then derive general expressions for the usual transport coefficients of such models, in terms of the derivatives of their equilibrium distribution functions. To illustrate potential applications, we choose a model obeying Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics, and simulate Rayleigh-Bénard convection with a forcing term and a temperature gradient, both of which are continuously variable.