Particle Dynamics at the Onset of the Granular Gas-Liquid Transition

M. Noirhomme1, A. Cazaubiel2, E. Falcon2, D. Fischer3, Y. Garrabos4, C. Lecoutre-Chabot4, S. Mawet1, E. Opsomer1, F. Palencia4, S. Pillitteri1, and N. Vandewalle1

1GRASP, CESAM Research Unit, Institut de Physique B5a, Sart Tilman, University of Liège, B-4000 Liège, Belgium
2Universite de Paris, Matière et Systemes Complexes (MSC), UMR 7057 CNRS, F-75013 Paris, France
3Institute of Physics, Otto von Guericke University, D-39106 Magdeburg, Germany
4CNRS, Universite de Bordeaux, Bordeaux INP, ICMCB, UMR 5026, F-33600 Pessac, France

Reference: Physical Review Letters 126, 128002 (2021)

URL: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.128002
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.128002 

Abstract: We study experimentally the dynamical behavior of few large tracer particles placed in a quasi-2D granular “gas” made of many small beads in a low-gravity environment. Multiple inelastic collisions transfer momentum from the uniaxially driven gas to the tracers whose velocity distributions are studied through particle tracking. Analyzing these distributions for an increasing system density reveals that translational energy equipartition is reached at the onset of the gas-liquid granular transition corresponding to the emergence of local clusters. The dynamics of a few tracer particles thus appears as a simple and accurate tool to detect this transition. A model is proposed for describing accurately the formation of local heterogeneities.

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