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International audience; It is well known, since the seminal work of Mysels et al., that the thinner parts of a foam film go up by gravity, whereas the thicker parts go down. Preparing a foam film in a controlled way, so that the top part of the film is much thicker than the bottom part at initial time, we show that this situation is indeed unstable under gravity. The observed instability is identified as a Rayleigh-Taylor like instability and studied in the linear regime. The wavelength and the growth rate are measured as a function of the effective gravity, and as a function of the thick film extension. We theoretically show that all wavelengths are unstable, as the surface tension stabilizing the small wavelengths in the classical bulk Rayleigh Taylor instability has no significant equivalent in a foam film. The fastest mode is analytically determined and is in qualitative agreement with the experimental observations.

Perception d'un stimulus gravitropique transitoire chez les plantes. GDR PhyP - Biophysique et biomécanique des plantes

International audience; We experimentally study the statistical properties of the energy fluxes between two trapped Brownian particles, interacting through dissipative hydrodynamic coupling, and submitted to an effective temperature difference ΔT, obtained by random forcing the position of one trap. We identify effective heat fluxes between the two particles and show that they satisfy an exchange fluctuation theorem in the stationary state. We also show that after the sudden application of a temperature gradient ΔT, the total hot-cold flux satisfies a transient exchange fluctuation theorem for any integration time, whereas the total cold-hot flux only does it asymptotically for long times.

We experimentally study the fluctuations of Brownian micro-particles trapped with optical tweezers arranged in various spatial configurations. We give a general description of the set-up and detail four different experiments we conducted. We first use a single particle in a double-well potential to model a two-state memory system. We verify the Landauer principle on the minimal energetic cost to erase one bit of information, and we use a detailed version of a fluctuation theorem to retrieve the expected energetic bound. We then use two particles in two different traps to study the hydrodynamic interactions between two systems kept at different effective temperatures. Contrary to what was previously observed, we show that the sol-gel transition of gelatine does not provide any anomalous fluctuations for the trapped particle when the sample is quenched below gelification temperature. However, we show that an effective temperature is created when a well chosen random noise is added on one trap position. We demonstrate that the random forcing on one particle induces an instantaneous correlation between the two particles motions, and an energy exchange from the virtually hot particle to the cold one, which is in equilibrium with the thermal bath. We show a good agreement between the experimental data and the predictions from an hydrodynamic coupling model. Finally, we describe the use of micro-fluidic channels to create a shear flow at the micron size, and we discuss the possibility to interpret the force due to the shear-flow in terms of an effective temperature by testing a fluctuation-dissipation relation.; Nous avons étudié expérimentalement les fluctuations de micro-particules browniennes piégées à l'aide de pinces optiques dans un réseau de puits de potentiels voisins. Nous donnons un descriptif général du montage expérimental, puis détaillons quatre utilisations différentes du système. Nous avons d'abord utilisé une unique particule dans un double puits de potentiel pour modéliser un système mémoire à deux niveaux, avec lequel nous avons vérifié le principe de Landauer sur le coût minimal en énergie pour l'effacement d'un bit d'information. Nous avons également appliqué une version détaillée d'un théorème de fluctuation à la procédure d'effacement de l'information pour retrouver la limite énergétique attendue. Nous avons ensuite étudié l'interaction hydrodynamique entre deux particules dont l'une est soumise à une température effective. Nous avons montré qu'il n'y a pas de fluctuations anormales lors de la transition sol-gel de la gélatine, contrairement à ce qui avait été observé précédemment, et que ce système ne pouvait donc pas être utilisé pour étudier des températures effectives. En revanche, nous avons montré que l'ajout d'un forçage aléatoire bien choisi sur la position d'un piège créait une température effective. Nous avons montré que le forçage d'une des particules résultait en une corrélation instantanée entre les mouvements des deux particules, et s'accompagnait d'un échange de chaleur de la particule virtuellement chaude à la particule froide en équilibre avec le bain thermique. Nous avons obtenu un bon accord entre les données expérimentales et les prédictions d'un modèle de couplage hydrodynamique. Enfin, nous décrivons l'utilisation de canaux micro-fluidiques pour réaliser un écoulement cisaillé à l'échelle micrométrique, et nous discutons de la possibilité d'interpréter un cisaillement en terme de température effective en testant une relation de fluctuation-dissipation.

We report a novel experimental technique that measures simultaneously in three dimensions the trajectories, the translation, and the rotation of finite size inertial particles together with the turbulent flow. The flow field is analyzed by tracking the temporal evolution of small fluorescent tracer particles. The inertial particles consist of a super-absorbent polymer that renders them index and density matched with water and thus invisible. The particles are marked by inserting at various locations tracer particles into the polymer. Translation and rotation, as well as the flow field around the particle are recovered dynamically from the analysis of the marker and tracer particle trajectories. We apply this technique to study the dynamics of inertial particles much larger in size (Rp/{\eta} \approx 100) than the Kolmogorov length scale {\eta} in a von K\'arm\'an swirling water flow (R{\lambda} \approx 400). We show, using the mixed (particle/fluid) Eulerian second order velocity structure function, that the interaction zone between the particle and the flow develops in a spherical shell of width 2Rp around the particle of radius Rp. This we interpret as an indication of a wake induced by the particle. This measurement technique has many additional advantages that will make it useful to address other problems such as particle collisions, dynamics of non-spherical solid objects, or even of wet granular matter., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, submitted to "Measurement Science and Technology" special issue on "Advances in 3D velocimetry"