Thermal convection and nonlinear effects of a superfluid /sup 3/He-/sup 4/He mixture in a porous medium

Journal Article · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1986 · J. Low Temp. Phys.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00681707· OSTI ID:6954572

Chien, L C; Fetter, A L

The convective instability of superfluid /sup 3/He-/sup 4/He mixtures in porous media is investigated. The general hydrodynamic equations are derived and reduced to a single nonlinear equation for a scalar field. The superfluid mixtures in a porous medium have a constant /sup 4/He chemical potential and behave essentially like a classical fluid in a porous medium. Two-fluid effects are calculated both at the onset of steady convection and the subsequent boundary of instability. The shift of critical Rayleigh number is about 1% or less at the onset of convection, but can be as large as 20% or more at the instability boundary for some regions around T approx. =1 K. This two-fluid shift is quite large compared to the corresponding 0.001% shift at the onset of convection for bulk superfluid /sup 3/He-/sup 4/He mixtures.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA
• OSTI ID: 6954572
• Journal Information: J. Low Temp. Phys.; (United States), Journal Name: J. Low Temp. Phys.; (United States) Vol. 64:5/6; ISSN JLTPA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640450* -- Fluid Physics-- Superfluidity
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CONVECTION
CONVECTIVE INSTABILITIES
DISPERSIONS
ENERGY TRANSFER
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
FLOW MODELS
FLUID MECHANICS
FLUIDS
HEAT TRANSFER
HELIUM 3
HELIUM 4
HELIUM ISOTOPES
HYDRODYNAMICS
INSTABILITY
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
MASS TRANSFER
MATERIALS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
MIXTURES
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
NUCLEI
PLASMA INSTABILITY
POROUS MATERIALS
QUANTUM FLUIDS
STABLE ISOTOPES
SUPERFLUIDITY
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
ULTRALOW TEMPERATURE