TY - GEN A1 - Zaks, Michael A1 - Shliomis, Mark T1 - Onset and breakdown of relaxation oscillations in the torsional Quincke pendulum N2 - In a strong constant electric field, a dielectric particle immersed in a weakly conducting fluid exhibits spontaneous rotations. This phenomenon is known under the name of the Quincke effect. In the original setup the particle was suspended on a silk thread and performed torsional oscillations of remarkably high amplitude. We derive the governing equations for this experiment, and ascertain that onset of oscillations from the quiescent state corresponds to the supercritical Hopf bifurcation. For the case of a soft thread, we characterize the regime of large-scale torsional relaxation oscillations: explicit estimates are derived for their period and amplitude, effects of bifurcation delay are described. In a stronger electric field, these relaxation oscillations yield to small-scale erratic rotations of the pendulum. KW - slow-fast systems Y1 - 2012 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-matheon/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1041 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0296-matheon-10412 ER -