Abstract
When a sandpile relaxes under vibration, it is known that its measured angle of repose isbistable in a range of values bounded by a material-dependent maximal angleof stability; thus, at the same angle of repose, a sandpile can be stationary oravalanching, depending on its history. In the nearly jammed slow dynamical regime,sandpile collapse to a zero angle of repose can also occur, as a rare event. We claimhere that fluctuations of dilatancy (or local density) are the key ingredient thatcan explain such varied phenomena. In this work, we model the dynamics of theangle of repose and of the density fluctuations, in the presence of external noise,by means of coupled stochastic equations. Among other things, we are able todescribe sandpile collapse in terms of an activated process, where an effectivetemperature (related to the density as well as to the external vibration intensity)competes against the configurational barriers created by the density fluctuations.
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