Determining the stability of granular matter piles is of basic concern in understanding many real-world phenomena (e.g. landslides, debris flow, and avalanches). While extensive literature exists dealing with the stability of mono-disperse systems, models for the dynamical behavior of...

Different sets of metastable states can be reached in glassy systems below some transition temperature depending on initial conditions and details of the dynamics. This is investigated for the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass model with long ranged interactions. In particular, the time...

Granular media jam into a panoply of metastable states. The way in which these states are achieved depends on the nature of local and global constraints on grains; here we investigate this issue by means of a non-equilibrium stochastic model of a hindered granular column near its jamming limit....

We report measurements of the density of a vibrated granular material as a function of time or taps. The material studied consists of monodisperse spherical glass beads confined to a long, thin cylindrical tube. Changes in vibration intensity are used to induce transitions between two steady...

A simple model for the dynamics of a granular system under tapping is studied. The model can be considered as a particularization for short taps of a more general one-dimensional lattice model with facilitated dynamics. The steady state reached by the system is discussed and the results are...

The contact between spheres results in a rolling resistance due to elastic hysteresis losses or viscous dissipation. This resistance is shown to be important in the three-dimensional dynamic simulation of the formation of a heap of spheres. The implementation of a rolling friction model can...