Coherent Rayleigh-Brillouin scattering measurements of bulk viscosity of polar and nonpolar gases, and kinetic theory.

We investigate coherent Rayleigh-Brillouin spectroscopy as an efficient process to measure the bulk viscosity of gases at gigahertz frequencies. Scattered spectral distributions are measured using a Fizeau spectrometer. We discuss the statistical error due to the fluctuating mode structure of the used pump laser. Experiments were done for both polar and nonpolar gases and the bulk viscosity was obtained from the spectra using the Tenti S6 model. Results are compared to simple classical kinetic models of molecules with internal degrees of freedom. At the extremely high (gigahertz) frequencies of our experiment, most internal vibrational modes remain frozen and the bulk viscosity is dominated by the rotational degrees of freedom. Our measurements show that the molecular dipole moments have unexpectedly little influence on the bulk viscosity at room temperature and moderate pressure.