The depletion force in a bi-disperse granular layer

Abstract

We demonstrate the effect of the depletion force in experiments and simulations of vertically vibrated mixtures of large and small steel spheres. The system exhibits size segregation and a large increase in the pair correlation function of the large spheres for short distances that can be accurately described using a combination of the depletion potential derived for equilibrium colloidal systems and a Boltzmann factor. The Boltzmann factor defines an effective temperature for the system, which we compare to other measures of the temperature.