Sand as Maxwell's demon
Statistical Mechanics
2009-10-31 v1
Abstract
We consider a dilute gas of granular material inside a box, kept in a stationary state by shaking. A wall separates the box into two identical compartments, save for a small hole at some finite height . As the gas is cooled, a second order phase transition occurs, in which the particles preferentially occupy one side of the box. We develop a quantitative theory of this clustering phenomenon and find good agreement with numerical simulations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9906275,
title = {Sand as Maxwell's demon},
author = {Jens Eggers},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9906275},
year = {2009}
}