Abstract
Light scattering experiments reveal a strong suppression of phase separation near the critical point of a vigorously stirred binary liquid mixture. For stirring Reynolds numbers ranging from 6.0 × to 4.5 × , the apparent critical temperature is depressed by ∼1 mK to ∼50 mK. This temperature depression can be fitted to a power law where . The magnitude of is consistent with simple models which attribute the effect to the suppression of composition fluctuations by shear; however, these models predict in contrast to the observed value of ∼2. Below the apparent critical temperature the turbidity changes significantly throughout a temperature range of tens of millikelvin following a power law where increases from ∼1 to ∼6 as is increased.
- Received 2 August 1983
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.29.308
©1984 American Physical Society