EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF THE DISSOCIATION HYPOTHESIS FOR SINGLE BUBBLE SONOLUMINESCENCE

Single bubble sonoluminescence stability in ambient radius (R-0), driv e pressure (P-a) phase space is examined for water partially saturated with pure argon, pure nitrogen, and argon/nitrogen mixtures in order to examine the dissociation hypothesis (DH) of Lohse and Hilgenfeldt [ J. Chem. Phys. 107, 6986 (1997)]. A stroboscopic imaging system was em ployed to measure R-0 and the maximum bubble radius R-max. P-a was cal culated by fitting the Rayleigh-Plesset equation to R-0 and R-max. Exc ellent agreement was seen between experiment and prediction over a wid e range of parameters, validating DH. [S0031-9007(98)07715-1].