Break-up dynamics of fluctuating liquid threads

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1207634109
• Publication Date: 2012-10-23T05:55:32Z
• Authors: Julien Petit; David Rivière; Hamid Kellay; Jean-Pierre Delville
• Keywords: Thermal fluctuations

The thinning dynamics of a liquid neck before break-up, as may happen when drop detaches from faucet or capillary, follows different rules and dynamic scaling laws depending on the importance inertia, viscous stresses, capillary forces. If now reaches dimensions comparable to thermally excited interfacial fluctuations, for nanojet break-up fragmentation annealed nanowires, these fluctuations should play dominant role according recent theory observations. Using near-critical interfaces, we here fully characterize universal this thermal fluctuation-dominated regime demonstrate that cross-over classical two-fluid pinch-off scenario thread occurs at well-defined radius proportional length scale. Investigating satellite formation, also show level between two regimes it is more probable produce monodisperse droplets because allow unique situation where formation can be inhibited. Nonetheless, interplay evolution profiles satellites' production remains clarified.