Global Analysis of the Flows of Fluids with Pressure-Dependent Viscosities

 To describe the flows of fluids over a wide range of pressures, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the viscosity of the fluid depends on the pressure. That the viscosity depends on the pressure has been verified by numerous careful experiments. While the existence of solutions local-in-time to the equations governing the flows of such fluids are available for small, special data and rather unrealistic dependence of the viscosity on the pressure, no global existence results are in place. Our interest here is to establish the existence of weak solutions for spatially periodic three-dimensional flows that are global in time, for a large class of physically meaningful viscosity-pressure relationships. (Accepted May 1, 2002) Published online November 15, 2002 Communicated by S. S. ANTMAN     

Liquid transport due to light scattering

Using experiments and theory, we show that light scattering by inhomogeneities in the index of refraction of a fluid can drive a large-scale flow. The experiment uses a near-critical, phase-separated liquid, which experiences large fluctuations in its index of refraction. A laser beam traversing the liquid produces a interface deformation on the scale of the experimental setup and can cause a liquid jet to form. We demonstrate that the deformation is produced by a scattering-induced flow by obtaining good agreements between the measured deformations and those calculated assuming this mechanism.     

Oscillating viscosity in a lyotropic lamellar phase under shear flow

We report some time-dependent behavior of lyotropic lamellar phase under shear flow. At fixed stress, near a layering instability, the system presents an oscillating shear rate. We build up a new stress versus shear rate diagram that includes temporal behavior. This diagram is made of two distinct branches of stationary states which correspond, respectively, to disordered and ordered multilamellar vesicle phases. When increasing the shear stress, prior to the transition to the ordered structural state, sustained oscillations of the viscosity are recorded. They correspond to periodic structural change of the entire sample between a disordered and a ordered state of multilamellar vesicles.     

Guided modes of integrated optical guides. A mathematical study

A waveguide in integrated optics is defined by its refractiveindex. The guide is assumed to be invariant in the propagationdirection while in the transverse direction it is supposed tobe a compact perturbation of an unbounded stratified medium.We are interested in the modes guided by this device, whichare waves with a transverse energy confined in a neighbourhoodof the perturbation. Our goal is to analyse the existence of such guided modes. Underthe assumptions of weak guidance the problem reduces to a two-dimensionaleigenvalue problem for a scalar field. The associated operatoris unbounded, selfadjoint, and bounded from below. Its spectrumconsists of the discrete spectrum corresponding to the guidedmodes and of the essential spectrum corresponding to the radiationmodes. We present existence results of guided modes and an asymptoticstudy at high frequencies, which shows that contrarily to thecase of optical fibers, the number of guided modes can remainbounded. The major tools are the min-max principle and comparisonof results between different eigenvalue problems. The originalityof the present study lies in the stratified character of theunbounded reference medium.     

Interaction of the mu-opioid receptor with GPR177 (Wntless) inhibits Wnt secretion: potential implications for opioid dependence

Background  

Opioid agonist drugs produce analgesia. However, long-term exposure to opioid agonists may lead to opioid dependence. The analgesic and addictive properties of opioid agonist drugs are mediated primarily via the mu-opioid receptor (MOR). Opioid agonists appear to alter neuronal morphology in key brain regions implicated in the development of opioid dependence. However, the precise role of the MOR in the development of these neuronal alterations remains elusive. We hypothesize that identifying and characterizing novel MOR interacting proteins (MORIPs) may help to elucidate the underlying mechanisms involved in the development of opioid dependence.     

Test of bell’s inequality using the one-atom micromaser

We examine a local realist bound in the case of a one-atom micromaser. It is shown that such a bound is violated using a simplified treatment of the micromaser. We consider the effect of dissipation in a proposed experiment with the real micromaser. It is seen that the magnitude of violation of a Bell-type inequality depends significantly on the cavity parameters.     

Undulation instability under shear: A model to explain the different orientations of a lamellar phase under shear?

We study the effects of a dilation on a sheared smectic A phase. Through a linear analysis, we show that undulation may grow in the direction of the flow and of the vorticity as found in previous works. At higher shear rates, we evidence that the undulation along the flow disappears whereas it persists in the vorticity direction. We determine the stable or unstable zone as a function of the shear rate and of the lamellar spacing. This allows us to draw a theoretical shear diagram of the instability. Finally we compare our results with the orientations found experimentally in a lyotropic lamellar phase under shear. Our diagram describes qualitatively and quantitatively the transition observed at high shear rate. Received 18 October 1999     

High precision delta(17)O isotope measurements of oxygen from silicates and other oxides: method and applications

The use of infrared laser-assisted fluorination to release oxygen from milligram quantities of silicates or other oxide mineral grains is a well-established technique. However, relatively few studies have reported the optimisation of this procedure for oxygen-17 isotope measurements. We describe here details of an analytical system using infrared (10 μm) laser-assisted fluorination, in conjunction with a dual inlet mass spectrometer of high resolving power ( approximately 250) to provide (17)O and (18)O oxygen isotope measurements from 0.5-2 mg of silicates or other oxide mineral grains. Respective precisions (1) of typically 0.08 and 0.04 per thousand are obtained for the complete analytical procedure. Departures from the mass-dependent oxygen isotope fractionation line are quantified by Delta(17)O; our precision (1) of such measurements on individual samples is shown to be +/-0.024 per thousand. In turn, this permits the offset between parallel, mass-dependent fractionation lines to be characterised to substantially greater precision than has been possible hitherto. Application of this system to investigate the (17)O versus (18)O relationship for numerous terrestrial whole-rock and mineral samples, of diverse geological origins and age, indicates that the complete data set may be described by a single, mass-dependent fractionation line of slope 0.5244+/- 0.00038 (standard error). Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of precession on velocity measurements in a strong laboratory vortex

A strong laboratory vortex is generated in a cylindrical cell using a rotating disk and stretched by pumping the fluid out through a hole in the centre of the top of the cell. The velocity field is measured by means of laser Doppler anemometry and Doppler ultrasonic anemometry which are both non intrusive methods. The vortex exhibits a slight precession which induces temporal fluctuations of the velocity at the measurement point. Due to the centrifugal force, the tracers concentrate in a tubular region around the vortex, leading to spatial variations of the measurement counting rate. Under these two effects, the probability density function (PDF) of the one point velocity exhibits a strong non-Gaussian behaviour. In order to access the details of the velocity profile of the vortex in its own system of reference, the influence of the vortex precession, of the spatial variations of the concentration in tracers and of the intrinsic measurement dispersion is investigated and a model is proposed. It allows to recover statistically the characteristics of the vortex and to deduce the trajectory of its centre from the instantaneous velocity profiles. Received: 5 August 1998/Accepted: 20 February 1999     

Scattering of a sound wave by a vibrating surface

We report an experimental study of the scattering of a sound wave of frequency f by a surface vibrating at frequency F. Both the Doppler shift at the vibrating surface and acoustic nonlinearities in the bulk of the fluid, generate the frequencies f±nF (n integer) in the spectrum of the scattered wave. We show that these two contributions can be separated because they scale differently with respect to the vibration frequency and to the distance between the vibrating scatterer and the detector. We determine the parameter ranges in which one or the other mechanism dominates and present quantitative studies of these two regimes. Received 2 December 2002 / Received in final form 27 March 2003 Published online 4 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: fauve@physique.ens.fr RID="b" ID="b"UMR 8550