Temporal fluctuations in a turbulently stirred binary liquid mixture

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Abstract
We report measurements of the temporal autocorrelation function g(t) of light scattered from critical binary liquid mixtures which are being continuously and turbulently stirred. The functional form of g(t) changes dramatically when the turbulent shear is changed from weak to strong. In the strong shear regime g(t) becomes a stretched exponential function, with an exponent that decreases as the temperature approaches the critical temperature. This stretched exponential behavior is associated with spatially intermittent suppression of critical fluctuations produced by the turbulence.