Solitons in Granular Chains

The authors consider a chain of elastic (Hertzian) grains that repel upon contact according to the potential V = adeltau, u > 2, where delta is the overlap between the grains. They present numerical and analytical results to show that an impulse initiated at an end of a chain of Hertzian grains in contact eventually propagates as a soliton for all n > 2 and that no solitons are possible for n le 2. Unlike continuous, they find that colliding solitons in discrete media initiative multiple weak solitons at the point of crossing