Spontaneous ratchet effect in a granular gas.
The spontaneous clustering of a vibrofluidized granular gas is employed to generate directed transport in two different compartmentalized systems: a granular fountain in which the transport takes the form of convection rolls, and a granular ratchet with a spontaneous particle current perpendicular to the direction of energy input. In both instances, transport is not due to any system-intrinsic anisotropy, but arises as a spontaneous collective symmetry breaking effect of many interacting granular particles. The experimental and numerical results are quantitatively accounted for within a flux model.
van der Meer
Devaraj
D
Department of Applied Physics and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Reimann
Peter
P
van der Weele
Ko
K
Lohse
Detlef
D
D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005740:Gases; D007700:Kinetics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013816:Thermodynamics
D005740:Gases