https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-021-00117-8
Regular Article - Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
A mechanism of macroscopic rigid-body behavior through evanescent mode
1
Matières et Systèmes Complexes, CNRS-UMR7057, Université de Paris, 75013, Paris, France
2
Gulliver UMR CNRS 7083, ESPCI Paris, Université PSL, 75005, Paris, France
3
Licence 3, UFR Physique, Université de Paris, 75013, Paris, France
4
RDP, ENS de Lyon, UCB Lyon 1, INRA, CNRS, Université de Lyon, Lyon Cedex 07, 69364, Lyon, France
5
LadHyX, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91128, Palaiseau Cedex, France
Received:
31
December
2020
Accepted:
7
May
2021
Published online:
20
May
2021
It has been numerically found that the setup of Newton’s cradle can exhibit a rigid-body like behavior, that is, the target cluster starts to move collectively without emitting the outermost particle if the purely repulsive interaction between the neighbouring particles is very “soft” (Phys. Rev. Lett. 104:124302, 2010). We show theoretically that such an interaction leads to an evanescent mode within the cluster, which delivers the momentum within the cluster without any propagating oscillation.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
