It has been shown in our previous publication
(Blawzdziewicz,Cristini,Loewenberg,2003) that high-viscosity drops in two
dimensional linear creeping flows with a nonzero vorticity component may have
two stable stationary states. One state corresponds to a nearly spherical,
compact drop stabilized primarily by rotation, and the other to an elongated
drop stabilized primarily by capillary forces. Here we explore consequences of
the drop bistability for the dynamics of highly viscous drops. Using both
boundary-integral simulations and small-deformation theory we show that a
quasi-static change of the flow vorticity gives rise to a hysteretic response
of the drop shape, with rapid changes between the compact and elongated
solutions at critical values of the vorticity. In flows with sinusoidal
temporal variation of the vorticity we find chaotic drop dynamics in response
to the periodic forcing. A cascade of period-doubling bifurcations is found to
be directly responsible for the transition to chaos. In random flows we obtain
a bimodal drop-length distribution. Some analogies with the dynamics of
macromolecules and vesicles are pointed out.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures. submitted to Journal of Fluid Mechanic