Bistable Clustering in Driven Granular Mixtures

Giulio Costantini; Daniela Paolotti; Ciro Cattuto; Umberto Marini Bettolo Marconi

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2004.08.084

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Bistable Clustering in Driven Granular Mixtures

Giulio Costantini·Daniela Paolotti·Ciro Cattuto·Umberto Marini Bettolo Marconi

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Abstract

The behavior of a bidisperse inelastic gas vertically shaken in a compartmentalized container is investigated using two different approaches: the first is a mean-field dynamical model, which treats the number of particles in the two compartments and the associated kinetic temperatures in a self-consistent fashion; the second is an event-driven numerical simulation. Both approaches reveal a non-stationary regime, which has no counterpart in the case of monodisperse granular gases. Specifically, when the mass difference between the two species exceeds a certain threshold the populations display a bistable behavior, with particles of each species switching back and forth between compartments. The reason for such an unexpected behavior is attributed to the interplay of kinetic energy non-equipartition due to inelasticity with the energy redistribution induced by collisions. The mean-field model and numerical simulation are found to agree qualitatively.

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Giulio Costantini, Daniela Paolotti, Ciro Cattuto, Umberto Marini Bettolo Marconi. 2005-02-01. Bistable Clustering in Driven Granular Mixtures. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2004.08.084

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