Clustering and melting in a wet granular monolayer
arXiv:1610.06466 · doi:10.1051/epjconf/201714008003
Abstract
We investigate experimentally the collective behavior of a wet granular monolayer under vertical vibrations. The spherical particles are partially wet such that there are short-ranged attractive interactions between adjacent particles. As the vibration strength increases, clustering, reorganizing and melting regimes are identified subsequently through a characterization with the bond-orientational order parameters and the mean kinetic energy of the particles. The melting transition is found to be a continuous process starting from the defects inside the crystal.
4 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Powders and Grains 2017