https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2017-70082-8
Regular Article
Driven granular fluids
Glass transition and microrheology
1 Institut für Materialphysik im Weltraum, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, 51170 Köln, Germany
2 Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Strasse 77, 50937 Köln, Germany
3 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
a e-mail: matthias.sperl@dlr.de
Received: 9 May 2017
Revised: 13 June 2017
Published online: 10 August 2017
Dense granular media can be prepared in a stationary state by suitable driving. Such driving can be given by a random, momentum-conserving external force acting upon, say, a fluid comprised of inelastic hard spheres. While this out-of-equilibrium stationary state violates time reversal symmetry, it can still be investigated by means similar to ordinary fluids. For high enough density, the driven granular fluid undergoes a glass transition, and for this transition an extension to the mode-coupling theory can be derived. In addition to the quiescent stationary state, a kinetic theory as well as experiments in 2D for the active microrheology can be devised, where a selected intruder is pulled through the system as a probe for either constant velocity or force.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2017