Effect of rare events on out-of-equilibrium relaxation.
This Letter reports experimental and numerical results on particle dynamics in an out-of-equilibrium granular medium. We observed two distinct types of grain motion: the well known cage motion, during which a grain is always surrounded by the same neighbors, and low probability "jumps," during which a grain moves significantly more relative to the others. These observations are similar to the results obtained for other out-of-equilibrium systems (glasses, colloidal systems, etc.). Although such jumps are extremely rare, by inhibiting them in numerical simulations we demonstrate that they play a significant role in the relaxation of out-of-equilibrium systems.
GMCM, UMR CNRS 6626, Université de Rennes I, France.
Philippe
P
Ribière
Patrick
P
Richard
Renaud
R
Delannay
Daniel
D
Bideau
Masahiro
M
Toiya
Wolfgang
W
Losert
D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D045424:Complex Mixtures / Q000737:chemistry*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical
D003102:Colloids; D045424:Complex Mixtures