Breakup of an electrified, perfectly conducting, viscous thread in an AC field.

We study the axisymmetric breakup and satellite formation of slender jets surrounded by a concentrically placed cylindrical electrode and subjected to time-dependent AC electric fields. The jet is assumed to be a perfectly conducting viscous fluid and surrounded by a dielectric inviscid gas. We use the long-wave approximation to derive coupled evolution equations for the interface position and the axial velocity component, which accounts for electrostatic forcing. The electrostatic force in this case is large and competes with capillary forces near the rupture point, causing the interface to oscillate and the satellite to have shapes that are distinct from the DC case. In particular, our results indicate that it may be possible to use the AC field to control the number of satellites accompanying breakup as well as their size.