Brownian motor in a granular medium

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates how a rotating asymmetric probe behaves in a vibrated granular medium, revealing that its steady rotation depends on energy distribution across specific frequency bands, not just overall vibration strength.

Contribution

It demonstrates the influence of frequency-specific energy transfer and viscosity changes on the rotation of an asymmetric probe in vibrated granular media.

Findings

Rotation direction is constant and depends on asymmetry.

Rotation velocity depends on energy in specific frequency bands.

Energy transfer and viscosity influence probe dynamics.

Abstract

In this work we experimentally study the behavior of a freely-rotating asymmetric probe immersed in a vibrated granular medium. For a wide variety of vibration conditions the probe exhibits a steady rotation whose direction is constant with respect to the asymmetry. By changing the vibration amplitude and by filtering the noise in different frequency bands we show that the velocity of rotation does not depend only on the RMS acceleration $\Gamma$, but also on the amount of energy provided to two separate frequency bands which are revealed to be important for the dynamics of the granular medium: the first band governs the transfer of energy from the grains to the probe, and the second affects the dynamics by altering the viscosity of the vibro-fluidized material.