BioComplex Seminar
Phase Separation in Driven Granular Media


Nov
02
2009

  • Host Department: Physics
  • Date: 11/02/2009
  • Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
  • Location: 335 West Hall
  • Contact Information: Click here to view the entire BioComplex Seminar schedule.
  • Description: Speaker: Evgeniy Khain (Oakland University)
  • Detailed Information:

    Fluidized granular matter (matter composed of macroscopic particles) exhibit a plethora of fascinating symmetry-breaking instabilities and pattern-formation phenomena. In granular matter, particles collide inelastically, losing energy in each binary collision. Therefore an external driving force is necessary to maintain the particles motion. As a result, granular systems are intrinsically far from equilibrium.

    Due to inelastic collisions, granular matter has a natural tendency to form clusters. This brings about a possibility of fluid-solid coexistence in driven granular media. Professor Khain will present two examples of phase separation in vibrated granular matter. The first example shows a van der Waals-like phase coexistence in a two-dimensional system driven by a thermal wall. The second example presents a phase separation phenomenon in vibrated granular monolayer. These phenomena are theoretically described by granular hydrodynamics.