Experimental investigation of the classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability
The evolution of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability in a compressible medium has been investigated at an accelerating embedded interface and at the ablation front in a series of experiments on the Nova laser. The x-ray drive generated in a gold hohlraum ablatively accelerated a planar target consisting of a doped plastic pusher backed by a higher density titanium payload with perturbations placed at the plastic-Ti interface. The targets were diagnosed by face-on and side-on radiography. In previous work focusing on single mode perturbations, wavelengths as short as 10 m have been observed to grow strongly at the embedded interface. Here multimode perturbations consisting of either 2, 10 or 20 modes superposed in phase have been investigated.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 256107
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC--123293; CONF-9606229--4; ON: DE96012307
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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