Analytical study of nonlinear vibrations of a charged viscous liquid drop

Abstract

The generatrix of a nonlinearly vibrating charged drop of a viscous incompressible conducting liquid is found by directly expanding the equilibrium spherical shape of the drop in the amplitude of initial multimode deformation up to second-order terms. A fact previously unknown in the theory of nonlinear interaction is discovered: the energy of an initially excited vibration mode of a low-viscosity liquid drop is gradually (within several vibrations periods) transferred to the mode excited by only nonlinear interaction. Irrespectively of the form of the initial deformation, an unstable viscous drop bearing a charge slightly exceeding the critical Rayleigh value takes the shape of a prolate spheroid because of viscous damping of all the modes (except for the fundamental one) for a characteristic time depending on the damping rates of the initially excited modes and the further evolution of the drop is governed by the fundamental mode. In a high-viscosity drop, the rate of rise of the unstable fundamental mode amplitude does not increase continuously with time, contrary to the predictions of nonlinear analysis in terms of the ideal liquid model: it first decreases to a value slightly differing from zero (which depends on the extent of supercriticality of the charge and viscosity of the liquid), remains small for a while (the unstable mode amplitude remains virtually time-independent), and then starts growing.