High energy laser interactions with water droplets

A strategy is described for studying the hydrodynamics of a water droplet irradiated by a high energy laser beam. The electromagnetic fields inside the (dielectric) drop are considered as perturbations around the Mie fields. The approach is shown to work for times much smaller than the conventional characteristic hydrodynamic time, when heating effects can be safely ignored and polarization/electrostriction effects dominate. Linearized electrohydrodynamic equations yield a density increasing toward the surface, away from the center of the drop.