Granular collapse as a percolation transition

Granular dynamics and gravity

The role of gravity on the dynamics of granular particles is examined via their velocity distributions. Acceleration due to gravity, particle number and the coefficient of restitution have all been varied. Various quantitative relationships governing the relationship between parameters involved in the vertical and horizontal velocity component distributions are derived and applied to the data, and for the horizontal velocity components' distribution in particular remarkably good agreement is obtained.

How Inhomogeneous Site Percolation Works on Bethe Lattices: Theory and Application

Inhomogeneous percolation, for its closer relationship with real-life, can be more useful and reasonable than homogeneous percolation to illustrate the critical phenomena and dynamical behaviour of complex networks. However, due to its intricacy, the theoretical framework of inhomogeneous percolation is far from being complete and many challenging problems are still open. In this paper, we first investigate inhomogeneous site percolation on Bethe Lattices with two occupation probabilities, and then extend the result to percolation with m occupation probabilities. The critical behaviour of this inhomogeneous percolation is shown clearly by formulating the percolation probability P∞(p) with given occupation probability p, the critical occupation probability pc = sup{p|P∞(p) = o}, and the average cluster size χ(p) where p is subject to P∞(p) = o. Moreover, using the above theory, we discuss in detail the diffusion behaviour of an infectious disease (SARS) and present specific disease-control strategies in consideration of groups with different infection probabilities.

Percolation on sparse networks

We study percolation on networks, which is used as a model of the resilience of networked systems such as the Internet to attack or failure and as a simple model of the spread of disease over human contact networks. We reformulate percolation as a message passing process and demonstrate how the resulting equations can be used to calculate, among other things, the size of the percolating cluster and the average cluster size. The calculations are exact for sparse networks when the number of short loops in the network is small, but even on networks with many short loops we find them to be highly accurate when compared with direct numerical simulations. By considering the fixed points of the message passing process, we also show that the percolation threshold on a network with few loops is given by the inverse of the leading eigenvalue of the so-called nonbacktracking matrix.

Cluster growth in two- and three-dimensional granular gases

Dissipation in granular media leads to interesting phenomena such as cluster formation and crystallization in nonequilibrium dynamical states. The freely cooling system is examined concerning the energy decay and the cluster evolution in time, both in two and three dimensions. We also suggest an interpretation of the three-dimensional cluster growth in terms of percolation theory, but this point deserves further study.

Symmetry breaking and coarsening of clusters in a prototypical driven granular gas

Granular hydrodynamics predicts symmetry-breaking instability in a two-dimensional ensemble of nearly elastically colliding smooth hard disks driven, at zero gravity, by a rapidly vibrating sidewall. Supercritical and subcritical symmetry-breaking bifurcations of the stripe state are identified, and the supercritical bifurcation curve is computed. The cluster dynamics proceed as a coarsening process mediated by the gas phase. Well above the bifurcation point the final steady state, selected by coarsening, represents a single strongly localized densely packed "droplet."

Symmetry-breaking instability in a prototypical driven granular gas

Symmetry-breaking instability of a laterally uniform granular cluster (strip state) in a prototypical driven granular gas is investigated. The system consists of smooth hard disks in a two-dimensional box, colliding inelastically with each other and driven, at zero gravity, by a "thermal" wall. The limit of nearly elastic particle collisions is considered, and granular hydrodynamics with the Jenkins-Richman constitutive relations is employed. The hydrodynamic problem is completely described by two scaled parameters and the aspect ratio of the box. Marginal stability analysis predicts a spontaneous symmetry-breaking instability of the strip state, similar to that predicted recently for a different set of constitutive relations. If the system is big enough, the marginal stability curve becomes independent of the details of the boundary condition at the driving wall. In this regime, the density perturbation is exponentially localized at the elastic wall opposite the thermal wall. The short- and long-wavelength asymptotics of the marginal stability curves are obtained analytically in the dilute limit. The physics of the symmetry-breaking instability is discussed.

Fast Monte Carlo algorithm for site or bond percolation

We describe in detail an efficient algorithm for studying site or bond percolation on any lattice. The algorithm can measure an observable quantity in a percolation system for all values of the site or bond occupation probability from zero to one in an amount of time that scales linearly with the size of the system. We demonstrate our algorithm by using it to investigate a number of issues in percolation theory, including the position of the percolation transition for site percolation on the square lattice, the stretched exponential behavior of spanning probabilities away from the critical point, and the size of the giant component for site percolation on random graphs.