Intermittent dynamic bursting in vertically vibrated liquid drops

A previously unreported regime of type III intermittency is observed in a vertically vibrated milliliter-sized liquid drop submerged in a more viscous and less dense immiscible fluid layer supported by a hydrophobic solid plate. As the vibration amplitude is gradually increased, subharmonic Faraday waves are excited at the upper surface of the drop. We find a narrow window of vibration amplitudes slightly above the Faraday threshold, where the drop exhibits an irregular sequence of large amplitude bursting events alternating with intervals of low amplitude activity. Our experimental results and the suggested phenomenological model directly link the onset of the intermittent bursting regime in an isolated liquid drop to the competition between two hydrodynamic modes: the surface Faraday waves and the shape deformation mode, responsible for the horizontal drop elongation.