Direct observation of medium-range crystalline order in granular liquids near the glass transition

Collective behavior of driven granular matter is often strikingly analogous to that of thermal systems. Here we use a vibrated quasi-two-dimensional granular matter as a model system and investigate the mechanism of the liquid-glass transition. We demonstrate by direct observation the existence of long-lived medium-range crystalline order, which is found to be closely related to both dynamic heterogeneity and slow dynamics. Our findings are remarkably similar to recent numerical results on model thermal liquids and thus open an intriguing possibility of understanding the dynamic arrest in both thermal and athermal systems in a unified manner.