A Brief Survey of the Equilibrium and Transport Properties of Critical Fluids and the Degree to Which Microgravity is Required for Their Experimental Investigation

Abstract

The modern theory of second order phase transitions is very successful in calculating the critical exponents as an asymptotic expansion in powers of epsilon = 4 - D, the deviation of D = 3, the spatial dimension of the actual physical system from that of the abstract four-dimensional reference model. This remarkable mathematical 'tour de force' leaves unanswered, however, many fundamental questions concerning the exact nature of how the fluctuations interact. I discuss here some experiments which would help to further our understanding of the equilibrium critical properties. Especially promising would be a measurement of the temperature dependence of the turbidity very close to the critical point. This has the promise of determining the small and elusive but fundamentally important anomalous dimension exponent eta. I also review various ways of measuring the critical transport coefficients and point out some cases where ground based experiments may usefully supplement flight experiments