Creep Motion of an Intruder within a Granular Glass Close to Jamming

Abstract

We experimentally study the dynamics of an intruder dragged at a constant force in a horizontally vibrated monolayer of grains. At moderate packing fractions, the intruder moves rapidly as soon as the force is applied. Above some threshold value it has an intermittent creep motion with strong fluctuations reminiscent of ``crackling noise{''}. These fluctuations are critical at the jamming transition phi(J) unveiled in a previous study. The transition separates a regime with local free volume rearrangements from a regime where the displacement field is strongly heterogeneous and resembles force chain patterns.