Evolution of dynamical facilitation approaching the granular glass transition

Abstract

We investigate the relaxation dynamics of a dense monolayer of bidisperse beads by analyzing the experimental data previously obtained in a fluidized bed. We show that the dynamics is formed by elementary relaxation events called cage jumps. These aggregate on a very short time into clusters. Increasing the packing fraction makes the spatio-temporal organization of the clusters evolve from a rather scattered and random distribution towards a collection of sparse and large events, called avalanches. The avalanche process is a manifestation of dynamical facilitation. The study of its evolution with density reveals that dynamical facilitation becomes less conserved and play a lesser role for the structural relaxation approaching the granular glass transition.