We study the Brownian motion of ellipsoidal particles lying on an agitated granular bath composed of magnetic particles. We quantify the mobility of different floating ellipsoidal particles using the mean-square displacement and the mean-square angular displacement, and relate the diffusion coefficients to the bath particle motion. In terms of the particle major radius $R$, we find the translational diffusion coefficient scales roughly as $1/R^2$ and the rotational diffusion coefficient scales as roughly $1/R^4$; this is consistent with the assumption that diffusion arises from random kicks of the bath particles underneath the floating particle. By varying the magnetic forcing, the bath particles' diffusivity changes by a factor of ten; over this range, the translational and rotational diffusion of the floating particles change by a factor of 50. However, the ratio of the two diffusion constants for the floating particles is forcing-independent. Unusual aspects of the floating particle motion include non-Gaussian statistics for their displacements.

• Received 13 October 2019
• Revised 26 May 2020
• Accepted 19 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.022902