Brownian motion with dry friction (Q2574170)

In typical molecular collisions-motivated situations, the phase-space Brownian motion is considered to be randomly driven by white noise and tamed by friction which is proportional to the velocity of the particle. Other frictional forces are known to appear in the study of macro- and posssibly meso(nano)scopic materials, where the so-called Coulomb (dry) friction is independent of the speed of a material but depends on the direction of motion. The Langevin equation associated with Coulomb friction can be an effective equation in vibrating systems of granular particles. A possible goal in this case is an analysis of the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation, where steady velocity distribution functions are known to arise under an influence of the external field (they are exponential, not Gaussian, c.f. [\textit{H. Hayakawa}, Physica D 205, 48--56 (2005; Zbl 1085.60075)]. In the present paper a particular case is considered where a small object (droplet or grain) is placed on a horizontally vibrating plate, imposing an acceleration of the white-noise type. An effective Langevin equation is one-dimensional and defined in the reference frame of the vibrating plate. The behavior of such dry friction-tamed system is discussed with respect to the white-noise intensity parameter. There is a definite cross-over regime, where below certain value of the parameter an essentially unperturbed Brownian motion is observed. Above the cross-over value, the resultant diffusion coefficient is expected to show up, which for small intensities behaves like the inverse fourth power of the white noise intensity. The fully general discussion in three dimensions has been carried out by Hayakawa (loc. cit.).