Kinetic and hydrodynamic regimes in multi-particle-collision dynamics of a one-dimensional fluid with thermal walls

We study the nonequilibrium steady states of a one-dimensional fluid in a finite-space region of length L. Particles interact among themselves by multi-particle collisions and are in contact with two thermal-wall heat reservoirs, located at the boundaries of the region. After an initial ballistic regime, we find a crossover from a normal (kinetic) transport regime to an anomalous (hydrodynamic) one, above a characteristic size L*. We argue that L* is proportional to the cube of the collision time among particles. Motivated by the physics of emissive divertors in fusion plasma, we consider the more general case of thermal walls injecting particles with given average (nonthermal) velocity. For fast and relatively cold particles, short systems fail to establish local equilibrium and display non-Maxwellian distributions of velocities.