ITERATED INSTABILITIES DURING DROPLET FISSION

Recent observations indicate that the shape of a fluid interface undergoes repeated instabilities arbitrarily close to breakoff. We interpret this behavior as the result of successive instabilities of the similarity solution of Eggers. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 3458 (1993)]. We show that the similarity solution is unstable to finite amplitude perturbations, with critical amplitude going to zero at the singularity. Thermal fluctuations in the fluid can trigger the instabilities. © 1994 The American Physical Society.