Dynamics of a ball bouncing on a vibrated elastic membrane

We investigate the dynamics of a ball bouncing on a vibrated elastic membrane. Beyond the classical solid-solid case, we study the effect of introducing new degrees of freedom by allowing substrate oscillations. The forcing frequency of the vibration strongly influences the different thresholds between the dynamical states. The simple model proposed gives good agreement between the experiments and the analytical expression for the threshold at which the ball begins to bounce. Numerical simulations permit to qualitatively recover the experimental phase diagram. Finally, we discuss how this simple system can give new insights in the recent experimental studies on bouncing droplets.