  We study the appearance of large-scale dynamical heterogeneities in a
simplified model of a driven, dissipative granular system. Simulations of
steady-state gravity-driven flows of inelastically colliding hard disks show
the formation of large-scale linear structures of particles with a high
collision frequency. These chains can be shown to carry much of the collisional
stress in the system due to a dynamical correlation that develops between the
momentum transfer and time between collisions in these "frequently-colliding"
particles. The lifetime of these dynamical stress heterogeneities is seen to
grow as the flow velocity decreases towards jamming, leading to slowly decaying
stress correlations reminiscent of the slow dynamics observed in supercooled
liquids.
