  When a free-falling liquid droplet is hit by a laser it experiences a strong
ablation driven pressure pulse. Here we study the resulting droplet deformation
in the regime where the ablation pressure duration is short, i.e. comparable to
the time scale on which pressure waves travel through the droplet. To this end
an acoustic analytic model for the pressure-, pressure impulse- and velocity
fields inside the droplet is developed in the limit of small density
fluctuations. This model is used to examine how the droplet deformation depends
on the pressure pulse duration while the total momentum to the droplet is kept
constant. Within the limits of this analytic model, we demonstrate that when
the total momentum transferred to the droplet is small the droplet
shape-evolution is indistinguishable from an incompressible droplet
deformation. However, when the momentum transfer is increased the droplet
response is strongly affected by the pulse duration. In this later regime,
compressed flow regimes alter the droplet shape evolution considerably.
