paper

Slow relaxation in granular compaction

arXiv:cond-mat/9603150 · doi:10.1016/S0167-2789(98)00136-5

Abstract

Experimental studies show that the density of a vibrated granular material evolves from a low density initial state into a higher density final steady state. The relaxation towards the final density value follows an inverse logarithmic law. We propose a simple stochastic adsorption-desorption process which captures the essential mechanism underlying this remarkably slow relaxation. As the system approaches its final state, a growing number of beads have to be rearranged to enable a local density increase. In one dimension, this number grows as , and the density increase rate is drastically reduced by a factor . Consequently, a logarithmically slow approach to the final state is found .

revtex, 4 pages, 3 figures, also available from http://arnold.uchicago.edu/~ebn/

References in corpus (3)

Cited by in corpus (49)