Abstract
Abstract
Experimental investigation was carried out in order to study the properties of droplike aggregates – the needle-shaped drops of condensed phase, which appear in magnetic fluids undergoing field-induced phase transition of the gas-liquid type. When the applied magnetic field is removed, the needle-shaped aggregates demonstrate the Plateau-Rayleigh instability and disintegrate into series of separate spherical drops due to the surface tension σ at the interface between the gas and liquid phases. The surface tension entirely depends on interparticle interactions, thus experimental investigation of σ allows us to analyse the influence of temperature and magnetic field on the interparticle interactions. It is shown that drop-like aggregates condensed at high temperature demonstrate higher surface tension, than the aggregates condensed at low temperature. This anomalous behaviour can be attributed to the high magnetic field intensity needed to cause the phase transition at high temperature.