Long Range Correlations in Granular Shear Flow I: Numerical Evidence

We investigate the emergence of long-range correlations in granular shear flow. By increasing the density of a simulated granular flow we observe a spontaneous transition from a dilute regime, where interactions are dominated by binary collisions, to a dense regime characterized by large force networks and collective motions. With increasing density, interacting grains tend to form networks of simultaneous contacts due to the dissipative nature of collisions. We quantify the size of these networks by measuring correlations between grain forces and find that there are dramatic changes in the statistics of contact forces as the size of the networks increases.