Electronic edition ISSN 1574-0579

Convective instability of magnetic colloid and forced Rayleigh scattering experiments

A. Cēbers^1,2 , M. Igonin^1,2

¹ Institute of Physics, University of Latvia Salaspils-1, LV-2169 Latvia
² UFR de Physique, Université Paris 7 2 place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France and LMDH, Université Paris 6 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

Abstract
We consider the convective instability of an inhomogeneous magnetic colloid in a Hele--Shaw cell. A uniform magnetic field is applied parallel to the gradient of the gap-averaged concentration. The neutral curve obtained shows that microconvection can play an important role in the forced Rayleigh scattering experiments with magnetic fluids. Figs 1, Refs 10.