Evidence for speed-symmetry breaking in steady state of dissipative granular gas in 0g

P. Evesque, R. Liu, M. Hou , pierre.evesque@ecp.fr

Lab MSSM, UMR 8579 CNRS, Ecole Centrale Paris, 92295 Châtenay-Malabry, France &

Dept of Physics, Chinese Acad. Sc., Beijing, China

Abstract: The main topic of this presentation is the interpretation of data from extended simulations published in previous Poudres & Grains (see P&G 17, #1 to #18) concerning  the dynamics of N equal-size spheres in a 3d rectangular cell excited along Oz in 0 gravity.(N=100, 500, 1000, 1200, 2000, 3000, 4000, 4500). Different Oz excitation kinds have been used (symmetric and non symmetric bi-parabolic, symmetric and non symmetric saw teeth, thermal wall). No rotation is included, dissipation is introduced via a restitution coefficient e= -V’_n/V_n , where V’_n and V_n are the relative ball speed along normal to ball centres after and before collision. It is proved that the local speed distribution along z  is fundamentally dissymmetric in most part of the cell while the mean local speed is 0. This demonstrates the inability of a model based on a thermal bath (with a single local temperature) to describe this dissipative-granular-gas-system, even when assuming that this temperature varies in space.

This oral presentation was presented at Powders & Grains 2009, Golden, Co, USA.

Pacs # : 5.40 ; 45.70 ; 62.20 ; 83.70.Fn

poudres & grains 17(19) 564-576 (August 2009)