Thermal Properties of Athermal Granular Materials

Dry granular materials consist of a vast ensemble of discrete solid particles interacting through complex frictional forces at the contact points. The particles are so large that these systems are believed to be completely athermal. Here, we arrest the dynamics of a flowing granular material in a steady-state-flow configuration, enabling an isolated examination of aging at the particle contacts without granular rearrangements. Our findings reveal that the evolution of interparticle forces within the arrested athermal granular network results in the spontaneous increase of the system's yield stress. This strengthening process is logarithmic in time with a rate that depends on the temperature. We demonstrate that the material's stress relaxation exhibits similar time- and temperature-dependent behavior, suggesting a shared origin for aging and stress relaxation in these systems governed by thermal molecular processes at the scale of the grain contacts.