Shear thinning near the critical point of xenon

We measured shear thinning, a viscosity decrease ordinarily associated with complex liquids, near the critical point of xenon. The data span a wide range of reduced shear rate: 10(-3)gamma tau , C gamma depends also on both x 0 and omega . The data were compared with numerical calculations based on the Carreau-Yasuda relation for complex fluids: eta(gamma)/eta(0)=[1+A gamma|gamma tau|]-x eta/(3+x eta) , where x eta=0.069 is the critical exponent for viscosity and mode-coupling theory predicts A gamma=0.121 . For xenon we find A gamma=0.137+/-0.029 , in agreement with the mode coupling value. Remarkably, the xenon data close to the critical temperature Tc were independent of the cooling rate (both above and below Tc ) and these data were symmetric about Tc to within a temperature scale factor. The scale factors for the magnitude of the oscillator's response differed from those for the oscillator's phase; this suggests that the surface tension of the two-phase domains affected the drag on the screen below Tc .