Splashes in isotropic media

The response of a weakly absorbing isotropic medium to a sudden localized perturbation (a "splash") is explained within the framework of linear response theory. In this theory splashes result from the interference of the collective excitations of the medium, with the outcome determined by the interplay between their phase and group velocities as well as the sign of the latter. The salient features of splashes are controlled by the existence of extremal values of the phase and the group velocities: the group velocity gives the expansion rate of the locus of the points where new wave fronts nucleate or existing ones disappear, while the phase velocity determines the large-time expansion rate of a group of wave fronts. If the group velocity is negative in a spectral range and takes on a minimal value within it, then converging wave fronts will be present in the splash. These results are relevant to the studies of several experimentally viable setups, such as a splash on the surface of deep water due to a small pebble or a raindrop, a splash in the two-dimensional electron gas caused by a short voltage pulse applied with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, or a bulk splash in superfluid 4He due to formation of an electron bubble. Specifically, the gross features of a splash in superfluid 4He are determined by five extremal velocities. Additionally, due to the existence of a negative group-velocity spectral range, some of the wave fronts in the superfluid splash are converging.