LAUSR

This paper aims to identify the origin of the probability of break-up of drops within a concentrated emulsion flowing as a 2D monolayer through a tapered microchannel into a constriction. Although the concentrated emulsion is complex involving many-body interactions, all break-up events occur between two drops pinching each other as they enter the constriction under the conditions tested. Whether break-up occurs or not depends strongly on the relative position between the two drops at the entrance of the constriction. There exist a critical offset between the initial positions of the two drops below which break-up always occurs and another critical offset above which no break-up occurs. In between these two critical offsets, there is a narrow bistable region where both break-up and non-break-up events are observed. For a flowing concentrated emulsion, the relative position between two droplets entering the constriction varies stochastically. The frequency of occurrence of drop pairs having specific offset...