Effect of Drop Oscillations on Spectral Moments and Differential Reflectivity Measurements

Abstract

A perturbation method is applied to spheroidal oscillating drops to determine the effect of fundamental axisymmetric oscillations on the power spectra and polarimetric measurements. It is shown that vibration magnitudes that produce less than 10% change in equilibrium axial ratios are insufficient to produce measurable changes in the differential reflectivity or differential phase constant, yet they can lead to a detectable increase in sidebands of the power spectra. Larger oscillations do produce measurable effects on the polarimetric variables.