Steady states of a column of shaken inelastic beads

Abstract

We study dynamical properties of N inelastic beads shaken by a vibrating plane. These systems exhibit three kinds of steady states, depending on the inelasticity of the beads: a gas, a partially condensed phase, and a collapsed phase. In the one-dimensional case, we show that these phases are characterized by the parameter \ensuremath{\gamma}=N(1-\ensuremath{\eta}), where \ensuremath{\eta} is the restitution coefficient measuring the energy dissipation during the collisions. For \ensuremath{\gamma}0.1 and 1.53.1, good agreement is found between the one-body distribution function obtained by numerical simulations and analytical solutions.