Cryogenic design of the liquid helium experiment 'Critical Dynamics in Microgravity'

Although many well-controlled experiments have been conducted to measure the static properties of systems near criticality, few experiments have explored the transport properties in systems driven far away from equilibrium as a phase transition occurs. The cryogenic design of an experiment to study the dynamic aspect of critical phenomena is reported here. Measurements of the thermal gradient across the super-fluid (He Il)-normal fluid (He I) interface in helium under microgravity conditions will be performed as a heat flux holds the system away from equilibrium. New technologies are under development for this experiment, which is in the definition phase for a space shuttle flight. (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Limited