Stability of spherically confined free boundary drops with line tension.

We study the geometry of a stable drop of incompressible liquid constrained to lie in a spherical container. The energy functional is comprised of the surface tension, the wetting energy and the line tension. It is shown that the only stable equilibrium drops having the topology of a disc are flat discs and spherical caps. Sharp conditions for the stability of equilibrium spherical caps and flat discs are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]