This thesis is divided into two parts. In Part A the reference hypernetted-chain (RHNC) approximation is solved for a fluid of hard spheres with embedded point dipoles and linear quadrupoles. The thermodynamic properties, the dielectric constant, ∈, and the pair correlation function are compared with previously calculated Monte Carlo data as well as with results from other integral equation methods. The RHNC is found to closely approximate the Monte Carlo results and is shown to improve on the other methods. In Part B a self-consistent mean field theory for molecular polarizability is used, together with the RHNC approximation used in Part A, for a polarizable dipole-linear quadrupole fluid with ammonia-like parameters. The dielectric constant is calculated at three sub-critical temperatures and it is found to be quite sensitive to the quadrupole moment. Experimental results for ∈ are shown to be well within the uncertainty, set by the quadrupole moment, in the calculated ∈ values. These calculated ∈ values are shown to be significantly larger than the dielectric constants for the equivalent non-polarizable system. / Science, Faculty of / Chemistry, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-136). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

This work consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, a brief overview is made on the history of the modern kinetic theory of elastic and dilute gases since the early stages of Maxwell and Boltzmann. In addition, I short exposition on the complexities of the theory of granular media is presented. This chapter has the objectives of contextualize the problems that will be studied in the remainder of the document and, somehow, to exhibit the mathematical complications that may arise in the inelastic gases (not present in the elastic theory of gases). The rest of the work presents two self-contained chapters on different topics in the study of the Boltzmann equation. Chapter 2 focuses in studying and extending the propagation of regularity properties of solutions for the elastic and homogeneous Boltzmann equation following the techniques introduced by A. Bobylev in 1997 and Bobylev, Gamba and Panferov in 2002. Meanwhile, chapter 3 studies the existence and uniqueness of the inelastic and inhomogeneous Cauchy problem of the Boltzmann equation for small initial data. A new set of global in time estimates, proved for the gain part of the inelastic collision operator, are used to implement the scheme introduced by Kaniel and Shinbrot in the late 70’s. This scheme, known as Kaniel and Shinbrot iteration, produces a rather simple and beautiful proof of existence and uniqueness of global solutions for the Boltzmann equation with small initial data. / text

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