A mathematician from Leicester has designed a theory to clarify “heating by cooling,” where the total energy of a granular gas drops down while the temperature increases. This is a strange phenomenon that can be seen both in space and on Earth.

Granular gases are one of the handful instances where this logical mystery can be noticed. These systems are extensively present in nature in the shape of planetary rings, proto-planetary discs, and interstellar dust in space, or in the shape of smoke and aerosols on the Earth.

The dramatic “heating by cooling” effect in physical terms relates to a negative capacity of the heat. After gravitating systems, comprehensive granular gas is the 2nd object in the realm that clears this surprising property.

“From the school itself we are educated that temperature is equal to energy. The more the temperature, the more the energy! If a system drops energy, it witnesses a drop down in temperature,” claims lead author and Professor for Department of Mathematics at the University of Leicester, Nikolai Brilliantov, to the media in an interview. “Astonishingly, this is not always factual in case of granular gases.”

The global group of researchers has offered a very important clue on how granular gases demonstrate and function in this unexplained quality in a document posted in the journal Nature Communications where they have constructed a concrete mathematical groundwork of the event.

They have made a new mathematical algorithm known as generalized Smoluchowski equations. While traditional Smoluchowski equations, which have been recognized for over a century, deal only with development of agglomerates concentration, the innovative algorithm defines the growth of the temperature for agglomerates too.

The straight microscopic modeling of the arrangement, by widespread simulations of computer, has verified the survival of this astonishing regime and other forecast of the theory.