Resonant oscillations of air bubbles driven by a time varying electric field

We investigate the effects of a time varying electric field on air bubbles submerged in water. For a sufficiently strong applied field, a large electrical stress, arising from the dielectric nature of water, can violently deform the volume and shape of the submerged bubble.1 This deformation may drastically alter the internal pressure and polarization of the bubble, potentially lowering the electrical breakdown voltage within its volume. Such a result would have a broad impact on the viability of liquid plasma based technologies, which tend to suffer from prohibitively high voltage requirements.2