Whether they are entrained by a river, or bouncing on the sound board of a guitar, solid grains often behave like random walkers. They can be individually tracked and, when numerous, are a wonderful illustration of statistical mechanics. Sometimes, however, their collective behavior is not quite what one might expect based on this analogy. Using laboratory experiments and rudimentary numerical simulations, we investigate the formation of the Chladni figure, and propose a statistical mechanism for it. We then go after an exotic consequence of this mechanism, and try to create a macroscopic Büttiker-Landauer ratchet.
Accès Salle des séminaires FAST-LPTMS (Bât. 530, salle C.120, 1er)