Acceleration waves in rational extended thermodynamics of rarefied monatomic gases

Rational Extended Thermodynamics theories with different number of moments are usually introduced to study non-equilibrium phenomena in rarefied gases. Here, we use them to describe one-dimensional acceleration waves in a rarefied monatomic gas. In particular, we focus on the degeneracy of the acceleration wave to a shock wave, in order to test the validity of the models and the role played by an increasing number of moments. As a byproduct, some peculiarities of the characteristic velocities at equilibrium are analyzed as well.