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Reduced-gravity Environment Hardware Demonstrations of a Prototype Miniaturized Flow Cytometer and Companion Microfluidic Mixing Technology
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Gradient-driven fluctuations in microgravity.

A Vailati1, R Cerbino, S Mazzoni

  • 1IFN-CNR and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy.

Journal of Physics. Condensed Matter : an Institute of Physics Journal
|June 29, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Microgravity experiments reveal that non-equilibrium fluctuations in liquids grow significantly larger than equilibrium fluctuations. Removing gravity enhances these large-scale fluctuations, validating theoretical predictions.

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Area of Science:

  • Thermodynamics
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Materials Science

Background:

  • Equilibrium fluctuations in thermodynamic variables are typically small and localized at molecular scales.
  • Theory predicts significantly larger non-equilibrium fluctuations in both amplitude and spatial extent.
  • Gravity and buoyancy on Earth restrict the development of these large-scale fluctuations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate non-equilibrium fluctuations in a single liquid and a polymer solution.
  • To study these phenomena under microgravity conditions to overcome Earth-bound limitations.
  • To compare experimental results with theoretical predictions for fluctuation behavior.

Main Methods:

  • An international collaboration conducted a 14-year experiment using microgravity conditions.
  • Non-equilibrium states were induced by applying a temperature gradient across millimetre-size liquid samples.
  • A quantitative shadowgraph method, with optical axis parallel to the temperature gradient, measured phase modulations caused by fluctuations.
  • Analysis involved thousands of images and their 2D power spectra to determine the fluctuation structure function S(q), accounting for the instrumental transfer function T(q).

Main Results:

  • The mean-squared amplitude of fluctuations showed a power-law dependence at larger wave vectors (q).
  • A crossover at low q indicated that fluctuation size was limited by sample thickness.
  • The structure function's shape, its enhancement in microgravity, and its dependence on the applied gradient aligned with theoretical predictions.

Conclusions:

  • Microgravity experiments confirmed the significant growth of non-equilibrium fluctuations in liquids and polymer solutions.
  • The removal of gravity substantially increases fluctuation size and amplitude.
  • Experimental findings generally agree with theoretical models of non-equilibrium fluctuations, particularly regarding their size limitations and dependence on external gradients.