# Ion-impact-induced multifragmentation of liquid droplets

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how energetic ions induce shock waves in liquid droplets, leading to multifragmentation, which has implications for understanding radiation damage mechanisms in biological tissues.

## Contribution

It proposes a new experimental approach to observe ion-induced shock waves in liquid droplets, advancing the understanding of thermomechanical effects in radiation damage.

## Key findings

- Shock waves significantly contribute to damage in biomolecules.
- Conditions for observing multifragmentation are analyzed.
- The scenario aligns with biological experimental evidence.

## Abstract

An instability of a liquid droplet traversed by an energetic ion is explored. This instability is brought about by the predicted shock wave induced by the ion. An observation of multifragmentation of small droplets traversed by ions with high linear energy transfer is suggested to demonstrate the existence of shock waves. A number of effects are analysed in effort to find the conditions for such an experiment to be signifying. The presence of shock waves crucially affects the scenario of radiation damage with ions since the shock waves significantly contribute to the thermomechanical damage of biomolecules as well as the transport of reactive species. While the scenario has been upheld by analyses of biological experiments, the shock waves have not yet been observed directly, regardless of a number of ideas of experiments to detect them were exchanged at conferences.