Bistable clustering in driven granular mixtures

The behavior of a bidisperse inelastic gas vertically shaken in a compartmentalized container is investigated using two different approaches: the first is a mean-field dynamical model, which treats the number of particles in the two compartments and the associated kinetic temperatures in a self-consistent fashion; the second is an event-driven numerical simulation. Both approaches reveal a non-stationary regime, which has no counterpart in the case of monodisperse granular gases. Specifically, when the mass difference between the two species exceeds a certain threshold the populations display a bistable behavior, with particles of each species switching back and forth between compartments. The reason for such an unexpected behavior is attributed to the interplay of kinetic energy non-equipartition due to inelasticity with the energy redistribution induced by collisions. The mean-field model and numerical simulation are found to agree qualitatively.