A trajectory equation for walking droplets : hydrodynamic pilot-wave theory

Yves Couder and coworkers have demonstrated that millimetric droplets walking on a vibrating fluid bath exhibit several features previously thought to be peculiar to the microscopic quantum realm, including single-particle diffraction, tunneling, quantized orbits, and wave-like statistics in a corral. We here develop an integro-differential trajectory equation for these walking droplets with a view to gaining insight into their subtle dynamics. The orbital quantization is rationalized by assessing the stability of the orbital solutions. The stability analysis also predicts the existence of wobbling orbital states reported in recent experiments, and the absence of stable orbits in the limit of large vibrational forcing. In this limit, the complex walker dynamics give rise to a coherent statistical behavior with wave-like features. We characterize the progression from quantized orbits to chaotic dynamics as the vibrational forcing is increased progressively. We then describe the dynamics of a weakly-accelerating walker in terms of its wave-induced added mass, which provides rationale for the anomalously large orbital radii observed in experiments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Oza, Anand Uttam

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John W. M. Bush and Rodolfo R. Rosales.

• Mathematics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90191

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/90191