Using sound waves to model the rotational dynamics of inertial many-particle clustering objects

Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.

A group of researchers at the University of Chicago have found a way to use sound waves to model a system. The group describes the model they created in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Due to the difficulty of studying distant bodies such as exoplanets and black holes, astrophysicists attempt to create models for study instead. The researchers created a physical model to study the dynamics of objects that spin at different speeds.

There was an audio speaker inside of a transparent box and plastic balls. The researchers were able to levitate the plastic balls by pushing the speaker. They used the sound waves to create a weak attraction between the plastic balls and the speaker. They joined to form a round object similar to a dinner plate. They were able to spin the object they had created by adjusting the sound. They were able to control how fast their plate of balls spun by adjusting the parameters of the speaker.

The researchers increased the speed of their spinning plate. The plate was different from the round one. The plate began to break as the spinning speed increased. The balls slowly reassembled, forming a new plate.

The researchers noted that the spinning plate behaved differently than spinning liquid, and that the effect was similar to a cup of water having a different surface tension than a bucket of water. Further study is needed to explain the difference. Their model could be used to study the action of rocky asteroids as they grow larger.

More information: Melody X. Lim et al, Mechanical Properties of Acoustically Levitated Granular Rafts, Physical Review X (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021017

On arXiv, there is a website called arxiv.org/abs/2106.09765.

Journal information: arXiv , Physical Review Letters , Physical Review X

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