Weakly nonlinear ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability at preheated ablation front
- Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, P.O. Box 8009, Beijing 100088 (China)
- Department of Mechanics, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072 (China)
- Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310028 (China)
Stuart's weakly nonlinear theory is generalized to study single-mode ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability (ARTI) at a broad ablation front caused by preheating. The thickness effect of the ablation front is considered and the spatial amplitude distributions of density, temperature, and velocity for harmonic modes are obtained in the present model. It is confirmed that the modified Lindl formula [W. H. Ye et al., Phys. Rev. E 65, 057401 (2002)] is valid for predicting the linear growth rate when the ablation front is broad. It is shown by the present model that the mass ablation of the shell is enhanced obviously due to the generation of harmonics while the harmonics' effect on the mass asymmetry of the shell is weaker than the expectation given by the classical theory. It is also indicated by the present model that ARTI is stabilized by the nonlinear correction for all modes. This conclusion is physical and different from the sharp boundary model where ARTI is enhanced by the nonlinear correction for the short wavelength case. The reason for this difference is due to the thickness effect of the ablation front.
- OSTI ID:
- 21272699
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3236746; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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