Richtmyer-Meshkov-like instabilities and early-time perturbation growth in laser targets and Z-pinch loads
- Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375 (United States)
- Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375 (United States)
- Berkeley Research Associates, Incorporated, Springfield, Virginia 22150 (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551 (United States)
- Physics Department, Nuclear Research Center Negev, P. O. Box 9001, Beer Sheva, Israel, (Israel)
The classical Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability develops when a planar shock wave interacts with a corrugated interface between two different fluids. A larger family of so-called RM-like hydrodynamic interfacial instabilities is discussed. All of these feature a perturbation growth at an interface, which is driven mainly by vorticity, either initially deposited at the interface or supplied by external sources. The inertial confinement fusion relevant physical conditions that give rise to the RM-like instabilities range from the early-time phase of conventional ablative laser acceleration to collisions of plasma shells (like components of nested-wire-arrays, double-gas-puff Z-pinch loads, supernovae ejecta and interstellar gas). In the laser ablation case, numerous additional factors are involved: the mass flow through the front, thermal conduction in the corona, and an external perturbation drive (laser imprint), which leads to a full stabilization of perturbation growth. In contrast with the classical RM case, mass perturbations can exhibit decaying oscillations rather than a linear growth. It is shown how the early-time perturbation behavior could be controlled by tailoring the density profile of a laser target or a Z-pinch load, to diminish the total mass perturbation seed for the Rayleigh-Taylor instability development. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.
- OSTI ID:
- 20216040
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 7, Issue 5; Other Information: PBD: May 2000; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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