Instability of a spherical drop in the field of an electrical dipole

Analytical calculations show that, as a field in which an initially spherical charged conducting incompressible drop is placed becomes more and more nonuniform, coupling between the drop’s oscillation modes grows and the threshold of stability against the electrical field pressure declines. When an electrostatic parameter characterizing the electric field pressure exceeds a value that is critical for a certain mode to be unstable, the amplitude of this mode exponentially grows in an aperiodic manner and the amplitudes of modes coupled with this mode build up in an oscillatory manner, each mode having its own instability growth rate. In all cases, there exists a threshold value of the dimensionless electric parameter above which all oscillation modes are unstable.