Résumé: The seismic waves emitted during granular flows are generated by different sources: high frequencies by interparticle collisions and low frequencies by global motion and large scale deformation. To unravel these different mechanisms, an experimental study has been performed on the seismic waves emitted by dry, dense, quasi-steady granular flows. The emitted seismic waves were recorded using shock accelerometers and the flow dynamics were captured with a fast camera. The mechanical characteristics of the particle collisions were analyzed, along with the intervals between collisions and the correlations in particles' motion. The high-frequency seismic waves (1–50 kHz) were found to originate from particle collisions and waves trapped in the flowing layer. The low-frequency waves (20–60 Hz) were generated by particles' oscillations along their trajectories, that is, from cycles of dilation/compression during coherent shear. The profiles of granular temperature (i.e., the mean squared value of particle velocity fluctuations) and average velocity were measured and related to each other, then used in a simple steady granular flow model, in which the seismic signal consists of the variously attenuated contributions of shear-induced Hertzian collisions throughout the flow, to predict the rate at which seismic energy was emitted. Agreement with the measured seismic power was reasonable, and scaling laws relating the seismic power, the shear strain rate and the inertial number were derived. In particular, the emitted seismic power was observed to be approximately proportional to the root mean square velocity fluctuation to the power 3.1 ± 0.9, with the latter related to the mean flow velocity.

Résumé: It was recently shown that the optical excitation of rare-earth ions produces a local change of the host matrix shape, attributed to a change of the rare-earth ion's electronic orbital geometry. In this work we investigate the consequences of this piezo-orbital backaction and show from a macroscopic model how it yields a disregarded ion-ion interaction mediated by mechanical strain. This interaction scales as 1/r3, similarly to the other archetypal ion-ion interactions, namely electric and magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. We quantitatively assess and compare the magnitude of these three interactions from the angle of the instantaneous spectral diffusion mechanism, and re-examine the scientific literature in a range of rare-earth doped systems in the light of this generally underestimated contribution.