To Split or Not to Split: Dynamics of an Air Disk Formed under a Drop Impacting on a Pool

When a drop falls and impacts on a liquid pool, it entraps an air disk below the drop, which then contracts into a central bubble. Here, we use high-speed imaging and high-resolution numerical simulations to characterize the air-disk contraction dynamics for different liquid properties. We show that the air disk can contract into a single central bubble, form a toroidal bubble, or split vertically into two smaller bubbles. We demonstrate that the transitions between the different regimes can be separated by an Ohnesorge number, Oh(e), based on the air-disk thickness. For the lowest Oh(e), we find a new regime, where vortex shedding from the rim of the contracting air disk breaks the vertical symmetry and prevents the bubble from splitting in two.