FIG. 6.

Effect of initial shape on recovery dynamics. (a) Representation of an ellipse (with major and minor semi-axes at 1.4 and 0.87) by the sum of the first, second (P2), and fourth order (P4) Legendre polynomials. The amplitudes of P2 and P4 are 0.305 and 0.073, respectively. (b) Comparison of the deformation decay curves for P2, P4, and their combination (“P2 + P4”) that represents the ellipse in (a). The dotted curve labeled “exponential” displays the P2 component in the P2 + P4 curve. Inset: difference between the P2 + P4 curve and the P2 component at short times. The ordinate is in linear scale, in contrast to the log scale in the main figure.