Spin reversal and orbital torques on a viscous fluid Rayleigh sphere located arbitrarily in acoustical Bessel vortex (spiraling) beams

Abstract

The goal of this work is to demonstrate the emergence of a spin torque singularity (i.e. zero spin torque) and a spin rotation reversal of a small Rayleigh lipid/fat viscous fluid sphere located arbitrarily in space in the field of an acoustical Bessel vortex beam. This counter-intuitive property of negative spin torque generation suggests a direction of spin rotation in opposite handedness of the angular momentum carried by the incident beam. Such effects may open new capabilities in methods of quantitative characterization to determine physical properties such as viscosity, viscoelasticity, compressibility, stiffness, etc., and other techniques for the rotation and positioning using acoustical tractor beams and tweezers, invisibility cloaks, and acoustically-engineered composite metamaterials to name a few examples. Based on the descriptions for the velocity potential of the incident beam and the scattering coefficients of the sphere in the long-wavelength approximation limit, simplified expressions for the spin and orbital radiation torque components are derived. For beams with (positive or negative) unit topological charge (m=±1), the axial spin torque component for a Rayleigh absorptive sphere is maximal at the center of the beam, while it vanishes for |m|>1 therein. Moreover, the longitudinal orbital torque component, causing the sphere to rotate around the center of the beam is evaluated based on the mathematical decomposition using the gradient, scattering and absorption transverse radiation force vector components. It is shown that there is no contribution of the gradient transverse force to the orbital torque, which is only caused by the scattering and absorption transverse force components. Though the incident acoustical vortex beam carrying angular momentum causes the sphere to rotate in the same orbital direction of the beam handedness, it induces a spin torque singularity (i.e. zero spin torque) and subsequent sign reversal. This phenomenon of negative spin torque generation may be exploited from the standpoint of particle sizing, and possibly other applications in particle manipulation and rotation. In addition, an application of the spin and orbital radiation torque formulations derived here in the Rayleigh limit concerns the inverse determination of the host fluid viscosity from the induced sphere spinning and/or orbital rotation.