Impact dynamics of granular jets with noncircular cross sections

Using high-speed photography, we investigate two distinct regimes of the impact dynamics of granular jets with noncircular cross sections. In the steady-state regime, we observe the formation of thin granular sheets with anisotropic shapes and show that the degree of anisotropy increases with the aspect ratio of the jet's cross section. Our results illustrate the liquidlike behavior of granular materials during impact and demonstrate that a collective hydrodynamic flow emerges from strongly interacting discrete particles. We discuss the analogy between our experiments and those from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, where similar anisotropic ejecta from a quark-gluon plasma have been observed in heavy-ion impact.