A discrete statistical mechanics approach to aeolian ripple dynamics

Abstract

The interaction between a fluid and a granular material plays a crucial role in a large class of phenomena such as landscape morphology and transport of sediments, aeolian sand dunes formation and ripples dynamics. Standard models involve deterministic continuum equations or, alternatively, Lattice Boltzmann and Lattice Gas Cellular Automata. We here introduce a toy-model to address the issue of aeolian ripple formation and evolution. Our simplified approach accounts for the basic physical mechanisms and enables to reproduce the observed phenomenology in the framework of an innovative statistical mechanics formulation.