Giant Fluctuations - NEUF-DIX

The Giant Fluctuations – NEUF-DIX (Non-EquilibriUm Fluctuations during DIffusion in compleX liquids) space project

The Giant Fluctuations - NEUF-DIX project has entered its A/B phase in late 2016 and is scheduled to be flown in 2020 on-board the International Space Station (ISS) most probably within the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) facility that is installed in the US Destiny module.

The aim of the Giant Fluctuations - NEUF-DIX project is to investigate Non-EqUilibrium Fluctuations during DIffusion In compleX liquids under conditions that cannot be tackled easily by theoretical models, such as transient diffusion, concentrated samples and large gradients. The focus of the project is on the investigation of the non-equilibrium fluctuations in complex liquids, because of the rich phenomenology that can be attained by tuning the interactions in such systems. Since gravity quenches long-wavelength non-equilibrium fluctuations, in order to fully exploit the scale-free behaviour of the fluctuations we envision performing experiments under microgravity conditions. The project recently entered its A/B phase and will be flown on-board the International Space Station.

The goal of the project is to tackle several challenging problems that emerged during the last years, such as i) understanding the non-equilibrium fluctuations in a complex ternary mixture including a polymer, ii) understanding the non-equilibrium fluctuations in a complex ternary mixture including a polymer close to a glass transition, iii) checking the theoretical predictions of Casimir-like forces induced by non-equilibrium fluctuations, iv) the investigation of the onset of fluctuations during transient diffusion, v) understanding the non-equilibrium fluctuations in concentrated colloidal suspensions, a problem strictly related with the detection of Casimir forces, vi) understanding the effect of non-equilibrium fluctuations in the aggregation of biological proteins. We envision to parallel these experiments with state of the art multi-scale simulations.

For detailed description please refer to our paper: P. Baaske, H. Bataller, M. Braibanti, M. Carpineti, R. Cerbino, F. Croccolo, A. Donev, W. Köhler, J. M. Ortiz de Zárate, and A. Vailati, Eur. Phys. J. E 39, 119 2016