Analysis of the Multisibling Instability of Charged Liquid Drops

An extension is presented of the work previously introduced by the authors for a single-sibling disintegration of a charged liquid drop. A general theoretical analysis is presented for a multisibling instability. The model, based on treelike secondary breakups, leads to a residual drop and n siblings of different sizes and charges. The role of the external forces on the breakup process and on the disintegration of the liquid drop below its Rayleigh limit is also discussed. The result shows good agreement with the experimental observations of many other investigators. The demarcation between the modes of single- and multisibling breakup is also clarified.