Shear Thinning of a Critical Viscoelastic Fluid

Abstract

The frequency and shear dependent critical viscosity at a correlation length $ξ=κ^{-1}$, has the form $η=η_{0}κ^{-x_η}G(z_{1},z_{2})$, where $z_{1}$ and $z_{2}$ are the independent dimensionless numbers in the problem defined as $z_{1}=\frac{-iω}{2Γ_{0}κ^{3}}$ and $z_{2}=\frac{-iω}{2Γ_{0}κ_{c}^{3}}$. The decay rate of critical fluctuations of correlation length $κ^{-1}$ is $Γ_{0}κ^{3}$ and $k_{c}$ is the effective wave number for which $Γ_{0}k_{c}^{3}=S$, the shear rate. The function $G(z_{1},z_{2})$ is calculated in a one loop self-consistent theory.