Stability of the shear thinning flow between rotating coaxial cylinders with axial flow is carried out. The fluid is assumed to follow the Carreau-Bird model and mixed boundary conditions are imposed. The four-dimensional low-order dynamical system, resulted from Galerkin projection of the conservation of mass and momentum equations, includes additional nonlinear terms in the velocity components originated from the shear-dependent viscosity. In absence of axial flow the base flow loses its radial flow stability to the vortex structure at a lower critical Taylor number, as the shear thinning effects increases. The emergence of the vortices corresponds to the onset of a supercritical bifurcation which is also seen in the flow of a linear fluid. Existence of an axial flow, manifested by a pressure gradient appears to further advance each critical point on the bifurcation diagram. Complete flow field together with viscosity maps and stress distributions are given for different scenarios in the bifurcation diagram.

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