Complete modes of star-shaped oscillating drops

Abstract

The star-shaped oscillation of water drops has been observed in various physical situations with different sources of vertical excitation. Previous studies apply a quasi-2D model to analyze the resonance frequency and only consider the azimuthal oscillation mode. In this paper, we find that the upper surface of water drops also develop different motion patterns due to parametric instability and it is the coupling of surface motion and azimuthal oscillation that leads to star-shaped oscillations. We will introduce the analysis of the surface mode, combining with the azimuthal mode to give a complete description of the motion of water drops. We propose a new dispersion relation based on the complete description, which provides a significant increase of accuracy in predicting the oscillating frequencies.