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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Visualization of High Speed Liquid Jet Impaction on a Moving Surface
Published on: April 17, 2015
Collective behavior in a granular jet: emergence of a liquid with zero surface tension
Xiang Cheng1, German Varas, Daniel Citron
1The James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Abstract:
We perform the analog to "water bell" experiments with granular jets. Rebounding from cylindrical targets, wide granular jets produce sheets or cones with shapes that mimic a zero-surface-tension liquid. The jets' particulate nature appears when the number of particles in the cross section is decreased: the emerging structures broaden, gradually disintegrating into diffuse sprays. The experiment has a counterpart in the behavior of quark-gluon plasmas generated by colliding heavy ions. There, a high collision density gives rise to collective behavior also described as a liquid.
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