Sign of line tension in liquid bridge stability.
We apply the stability criterion we recently proposed for a general wetting functional [Phys. Rev. E 68, 012601 (2003)] to find out whether straight liquid bridges can be stable when subject to line tension of either sign. Our main conclusion is that, even when the line tension is negative, a straight liquid bridge can be stable, and so observable, provided that the line tension is not too large in absolute value.
Rosso
Riccardo
R
Dipartimento di Matematica, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia, Università di Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
Virga
Epifanio G
EG