Flows around confined bubbles and their importance in triggering pinch-off.

We describe the breakup of a confined gas thread in a cross-flowing stream of liquid at capillary numbers Ca < 10{-2}. The breakup is initiated, not by a Plateau-Rayleigh instability, but by liquid that flows from the tip of the thread to the neck where pinch-off occurs. This flow, faster than previously estimated, is driven by different curvatures at the tip and neck and runs through large gaps between thread and channel walls. Understanding how these curvatures evolve during bubble formation leads to accurate predictions of the moment of pinch-off.