No Arabic abstract
The acoustic properties of liquid oxygen have been studied up to 90 T by means of the ultrasound pulse-echo technique. A monotonic decrease of the sound velocity and an asymptotic increase of the acoustic attenuation are observed by applying magnetic fields. An unusually large acoustic attenuation, that becomes 20 times as large as the zero-field value, cannot be explained by the classical theory. These results indicate strong fluctuations of antiferromagnetically coupled local structures. We point out that the observed fluctuations are a precursor of a liquid-liquid transition, from a low-susceptibility to a high-susceptibility liquid, which is characterized by a local-structure rearrangement.
We studied the acoustic properties of liquid oxygen up to 90 T by means of ultrasound measurements. We observed a monotonic decrease of the sound velocity and an asymptotic increase of the sound attenuation when applying magnetic fields. The unusual attenuation, twenty times as large as the zero-field value, suggests strong fluctuations of the local molecular arrangement. We point out that the observed fluctuations are related to a liquid-liquid transition or crossover, from a small-magnetization to a large-magnetization liquid, which is characterized by a local-structure rearrangement. To investigate higher-field properties of liquid oxygen, we performed single-turn-coil experiments up to 180 T by means of the acoustic, dilatometric, magnetic, and optical techniques. We observed only monotonic changes of these properties, reflecting the absence of the proposed liquid-liquid transition in our experimental conditions.
Deformations of liquid interfaces by the optical radiation pressure of a focused laser wave were generally expected to display similar behavior, whatever the direction of propagation of the incident beam. Recent experiments showed that the invariance of interface deformations with respect to the direction of propagation of the incident wave is broken at high laser intensities. In the case of a beam propagating from the liquid of smaller refractive index to that of larger one, the interface remains stable, forming a nipple-like shape, while for the opposite direction of propagation, an instability occurs, leading to a long needle-like deformation emitting micro-droplets. While an analytical model successfully predicts the equilibrium shape of weakly deformed interface, very few work has been accomplished in the regime of large interface deformations. In this work, we use the Boundary Integral Element Method (BIEM) to compute the evolution of the shape of a fluid-fluid interface under the effect of a continuous laser wave, and we compare our numerical simulations to experimental data in the regime of large deformations for both upward and downward beam propagation. We confirm the invariance breakdown observed experimentally and find good agreement between predicted and experimental interface hump heights below the instability threshold.
Active fluids are intrinsically out-of-equilibrium systems due to the internal energy injection of the active constituents. We show here that a transition from a motion-less isotropic state towards a flowing polar one can be possibly driven by the sole active injection through the action of polar-hydrodynamic interactions in absence of an ad hoc free-energy which favors the development of an ordered phase. In particular, we propose an analytical argument and we perform lattice Boltzmann simulations where the appearance of large temporal fluctuations in the polar fraction of the system is observed at the transition point. Moreover, we make use of a scale-to-scale analysis to unveil the energy transfer mechanism, proving that elastic absorption plays a relevant role in the overall dynamics of the system, contrary to what reported in previous works on the usual active gel theory where this term could be factually neglected.
We propose a simple scaling theory describing the variation of the mean first passage time (MFPT) $tau(N,M)$ of a regular block copolymer of chain length $N$ and block size $M$ which is dragged through a selective liquid-liquid interface by an external field $B$. The theory predicts a non-Arrhenian $tau$ vs. $B$ relationship which depends strongly on the size of the blocks, $M$, and rather weakly on the total polymer length, $N$. The overall behavior is strongly influenced by the degree of selectivity between the two solvents $chi$. The variation of $tau(N,M)$ with $N$ and $M$ in the regimes of weak and strong selectivity of the interface is also studied by means of computer simulations using a dynamic Monte Carlo coarse-grained model. Good qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions is found. The MFPT distribution is found to be well described by a $Gamma$ - distribution. Transition dynamics of ring- and telechelic polymers is also examined and compared to that of the linear chains. The strong sensitivity of the ``capture time $tau(N,M)$ with respect to block length $M$ suggests a possible application as a new type of chromatography designed to separate and purify complex mixtures with different block sizes of the individual macromolecules.
By the Wolffs cluster Monte Carlo simulations and numerical minimization within a mean field approach, we study the low temperature phase diagram of water, adopting a cell model that reproduces the known properties of water in its fluid phases. Both methods allows us to study the water thermodynamic behavior at temperatures where other numerical approaches --both Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics-- are seriously hampered by the large increase of the correlation times. The cluster algorithm also allows us to emphasize that the liquid--liquid phase transition corresponds to the percolation transition of tetrahedrally ordered water molecules.