title: Electrostatically driven granular media: phase transitions and coarsening
abstract: We report the experimental and theoretical study of electrostatically driven granular material. We show that the charged granular medium undergoes a hysteretic phase transition from the immobile condensed state (granular solid) to a fluidized dilated state (granular gas) with a changing applied electric field. In addition we observe a spontaneous precipitation of dense clusters from the gas phase and subsequent coarsening-coagulation of these clusters. Molecular dynamics simulations show qualitative agreement with experimental results.
authors.affiliation: Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Aranson
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Blair
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Kalatsky
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Crabtree
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kwok
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Vinokur
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Welp