Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) has critical importance for a broad range of processes in nature and technology, from supernovae to plasma fusion. In most instances RTI is driven by variable acceleration whereas the bulk of existing studies have considered constant acceleration. This work focuses on RTI driven by acceleration with power-law time-dependence, and applies group theory to solve the classical problem. For early time dynamics, we find dependence of RTI growth-rate on acceleration parameters and initial conditions. For late time dynamics, we directly link interface dynamics to interfacial shear, find continuous family of regular asymptotic solutions, and discover invariance properties of nonlinear RTI. Our results reveal the interfacial and multi-scale character of RTI with variable acceleration. The former is exhibited in structure of flow fields with intense fluid motion near the interface and effectively no motion in the bulk; the latter follows from the invariance properties of nonlinear dynamics defined by the interplay of two macroscopic length-scales - the wavelength and the amplitude. Our theory resolves the long-standing problem of RTI nonlinear dynamics, achieves excellent agreement with observations, and elaborates diagnostic benchmarks for future experiments and simulations.
New types of symmetry for the Rayleigh equation are found. For small Atwood number, an analytic solution is obtained for a smoothly varying density profile. It is shown that a transition layer with a finite width can undergo some kind of stratification.
The combined effect of viscosity and vorticity on the growth rate of the bubble associated with single mode Rayleigh -Taylor instability is investigated. It is shown that the effect of viscosity on the motion of the lighter fluid associated with vorticity accumulated inside the bubble due to mass ablation may be such as to reduce the net viscous drag on the bubble exerted by the upper heavier fluid as the former rises through it.
The effects of velocity shear on the unstable modes driven by the effective gravity (Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange) and resistive drift wave instabilities for inhomogeneous equilibrium fluid/plasma density are analyzed for the localized eigenmode problems. It is shown that the effect of the velocity shear drastically depends on the type of instability. Whereas the velocity shear can significantly suppress both Rayleigh-Taylor and interchange instabilities, it has only a week impact on the growth rate of the resistive drift wave. This is directly related to the physical nature of these instab…
Ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth was investigated to elucidate the fundamental physics of thermal conduction suppression in a magnetic field. Experiments found that unstable modulation growth is faster in an external magnetic field. This result was reproduced by a magnetohydrodynamic simulation based on a Braginskii model of electron thermal transport. An external magnetic field reduces the electron thermal conduction across the magnetic field lines because the Larmor radius of the thermal electrons in the field is much shorter than the temperature scale length. Thermal conduction s…
Fluid instabilities like Rayleigh-Taylor,Richtmyer-Meshkov and Kelvin-Helmholtz instability can occur in a wide range of physical phenomenon from astrophysical context to Inertial Confinement Fusion(ICF).Using Layzer's potential flow model, we derive the analytical expressions of growth rate of bubble and spike for ideal magnetized fluid in R-T and R-M cases. In presence of transverse magnetic field the R-M and R-T instability are suppressed or enhanced depending on the direction of magnetic pressure and hydrodynamic pressure. Again the interface of two fluid may oscillate if both the fluids a…
It is shown that the transverse Rayleigh Taylor like instability can be well stabilized by using elliptically polarized laser in the hole boring radiation pressure acceleration regime. The $\bm{J}\times\bm{B}$ effect of the laser will thermalize the local electrons and support a transverse diffusion mechanism of the ions, resulting in the stabilization of the short wavelength perturbations, which is quite similar to the ablative Rayleigh Taylor instability in the initial confinement fusion research. The proper range of polarization ratio is obtained from a theoretical model for the given laser…
Experimental study of hydrodynamic perturbation evolution triggered by a laser-driven shock wave breakout at the free rippled rear surface of a plastic target is reported. At sub-megabar shock pressure, planar jets manifesting the development of the Richtmyer-Meshkov-type instability in a non-accelerated target are observed. As the shock pressure exceeds 1 Mbar, an oscillatory rippled expansion wave is observed, followed by the "feedout" of the rear-surface perturbations to the ablation front and the development of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which breaks up the accelerated target.
Magnetized laser-produced plasmas are central to many novel laboratory astrophysics and inertial confinement fusion studies, as well as in industrial applications. Here we provide the first complete description of the three-dimensional dynamics of a laser-driven plasma plume expanding in a 20 T transverse magnetic field. The plasma is collimated by the magnetic field into a slender, rapidly elongating slab, whose plasma-vacuum interface is unstable to the growth of the "classical", fluid-like magnetized Rayleigh-Taylor instability.
We present time-resolved observations of Rayleigh--Taylor-instability (RTI) evolution at the interface between an unmagnetized plasma jet colliding with a stagnated, magnetized plasma. The observed instability growth time ($\sim 10$~$μ$s) is consistent with the estimated linear RTI growth rate calculated using experimentally inferred values of density ($\sim 10^{14}$~cm$^{-3}$) and deceleration ($\sim 10^9$~m/s$^2$). The observed mode wavelength ($\gtrsim 1$~cm) nearly doubles within a linear growth time. Theoretical estimates of magnetic and viscous stabilization and idealized magnetohydrodyn…
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability develops when fluids are accelerated counter to their density gradients; intense interfacial fluid mixing ensues with time. The Rayleigh-Taylor mixing controls a broad range of processes in fluids, plasmas, materials, at astrophysical and at atomic scales. In this perspective paper we briefly review theoretical and experimental approaches, and apply theory and experiment to investigate order and disorder in Rayleigh-Taylor flows. The theory finds that properties of heterogeneous anisotropic accelerated Rayleigh-Taylor mixing depart from those of homogeneous isot…
It is shown that the transverse Rayleigh-Taylor-like (RT) instability in the hole boring radiation pressure acceleration can be suppressed by using elliptically polarized (EP) laser. A moderate ${J}\times{B}$ heating of the EP laser will thermalize the local electrons, which leads to the transverse diffusion of ions, suppressing the short wavelength perturbations of RT instability. A proper condition of polarization ratio is obtained analytically for the given laser intensity and plasma density. The idea is confirmed by two dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations, showing that the ion beam dr…
Layzer's approximation method for investigation of two fluid interface structures associated with Rayleigh Taylor instability for arbitrary Atwood number is extended with the inclusion of second harmonic mode leaving out the zeroth harmonic one. The modification makes the fluid velocities vanish at infinity and leads to avoidance of the need to make the unphysical assumption of the existence of a time dependent source at infinity. The present analysis shows that for an initial interface perturbation with curvature exceeding 1/(2sqrt{A}), where $A$ is the Atwood number there occurs an almost fr…
Evolution of the single-mode ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the presence of preheating is investigated numerically. It is found that the instability evolution depends strongly on the preheating length $L$ in front of the ablation-front interface. For weak preheating ($L/L_{\rm SH}\leq f_0$, where $L_{\rm SH}$ is the Spitzer-Harm length and $f_0\sim 20$ is a critical value), the linear growth rate has a sharp maximum and a secondary spike-bubble structure is generated. Interaction of this growing structure with the master spike-bubble leads to rupture of the latter. However, for strong…
The growth rate of the non-linear ablative Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability is enhanced by magnetic fields self-generated by the Biermann battery mechanism; a scaling for this effect with perturbation height and wavelength is proposed and validated with extended-magnetohydrodynamic simulations. The magnetic flux generation rate around a single RT spike is found to scale with the spike height. The Hall Parameter, which quantifies electron magnetization, is found to be strongly enhanced for short wavelength spikes due to Nernst compression of the magnetic field at the spike tip. The impact of th…
The magnetic-Rayleigh--Taylor (MRT) instability is a ubiquitous phenomenon that occurs in magnetically-driven Z-pinch implosions. It is important to understand this instability since it can decrease the performance of such implosions. In this work, I present a theoretical model for the weakly nonlinear MRT instability. I obtain such model by asymptotically expanding an action principle, whose Lagrangian leads to the fully nonlinear MRT equations. After introducing a suitable choice of coordinates, I show that the theory can be cast as a Hamiltonian system, whose Hamiltonian is calculated up to…
Rayleigh-Taylor interfacial mixing has critical importance in a broad range of processes in nature and technology. In most instances Rayleigh-Taylor dynamics is induced by variable acceleration, whereas the bulk of existing studies is focused on the cases of constant and impulsive accelerations referred respectively as classical Rayleigh-Taylor and classical Richtmyer-Meshkov dynamics. In this work we consider Rayleigh-Taylor mixing induced by variable acceleration with power-law dependence on the spatial coordinate in the acceleration direction. We apply group theory and momentum model to fin…
We consider the long-standing problem of Rayleigh-Taylor instability with variable acceleration, and focus on the early-time dynamics of an interface separating incompressible ideal fluids of different densities subject to an acceleration being a power-law function of time for a spatially extended threedimensional flow periodic in the plane normal to the acceleration with symmetry group p6mm. By employing group theory and scaling analysis, we discover two distinct sub-regimes of the early time dynamics depending on the exponent of the acceleration power-law. The time-scale and the early-time d…
The magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability has been investigated in great detail in previous work using magnetohydrodynamic and kinetic models for low-beta plasmas. The work presented here extends previous studies of this instability to regimes where finite-Larmor-Radius (FLR) effects may be important. Comparisons of the MRT instability are made using a 5-moment and a 10-moment two-fluid model, the two fluids being ions and electrons. The 5-moment model includes Hall stabilization whereas the 10-moment model includes Hall and FLR stabilization. Results are presented for these two models usi…
We give theoretical analyses of the Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability driven by a rotating magnetic field. Both slab and liner configurations with finite thicknesses are dealt with in the WKB and the non-WKB approximations. Results show that instabilities for all modes (combinations of wave vectors) are alleviated. We further discuss the potential application of the alternant/nested configurations of a theta and a Z pinch to the Theta-Z Liner Inertia Fusion (Theta-Z-LIF) concept.
Rayleigh-Taylor and Buoyancy-driven instabilities are very common instabilities for an inhomogeneous medium. We examine here how these instabilities grow for incompressible viscoelastic fluids like a strongly coupled dusty plasma by using incompressible generalized hydrodynamic (i-GHD) fluid model. Since the dust particles are pretty massive, the gravitational attraction of earth has a significant role in its dynamics. In this paper the acceleration due to gravity g and the role of strong coupling in the context of gravitationally stratified dusty plasma fluid have been considered. We find tha…
The effect of magnetic field on the nonlinear growth rate of Rayleigh-Taylor instability induced two fluid interfacial structures has been investigated. The magnetic field is assumed to be parallel to the plane of the two fluid interface and acts in a direction perpendicular to the wave vector. If magnetic field is restricted only to either side of the interface the growth rate may be depressed (may almost disappear) or be enhanced depending on whether the magnetic pressure on the interface opposes the instability driving pressure difference g(ρh - ρl)y or acts in the same direction. If magnet…
In this research, the height, curvature and velocity of the bubble tip in Rayleigh-Taylor instability at arbitrary Atwood number with horizontal magnetic field are investigated. To support the earlier simulation and experimental results, the vorticity generation inside the bubble is introduced. It is found that, in early nonlinear stage, the temporal evolution of the bubble tip parameters depend essentially on the strength and initial perturbation of the magnetic field, although the asymptotic nature coincides with the non magnetic case. The model proposed here agrees with the previous linear,…
For years, astrophysicists, plasma fusion and fluid physicists have puzzled over Rayleigh-Taylor turbulent mixing layers. In particular, strong discrepancies in the growth rates have been observed between experiments and numerical simulations. Although two phenomenological mechanisms (mode-coupling and mode-competition) have brought some insight on these differences, convincing theoretical arguments are missing to explain the observed values. In this paper, we provide an analytical expression of the growth rate compatible with both mechanisms and is valide for a self-similar, low Atwood Raylei…
We report a novel measurement of the late time self-similar growth constant $α_B$ of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) from controlled initial perturbations. To this end, we have developed a laser-driven experiment, fielded on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), to explore deeply non-linear, multimode hydrodynamic growth of a planar interface. The measured value is $α_B=0.038\pm 0.008$, which is consistent with previously reported 2D simulations and closer to previously reported 3D simulations. This resolved the known discrepancy between experiments and simulations of RTI.
We extend the ideas of Kolmogorov theory on symmetries of turbulent dynamics to analyze invariants, scaling and spectra of unsteady turbulent mixing induced by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Time- and scale-invariance of the rate of momentum loss leads to non-dissipative momentum transfer between the scales, to and power-law scale-dependencies of the velocity and Reynolds number and spectra distinct from Kolmogorov, and sets the viscous and dissipation scales. Turbulent mixing exhibits more order compared to isotropic turbulence. Mechanisms of flow regularization are discussed.
An increasing number of numerical simulations and experiments describing the turbulent spectrum of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing layers came to light over the past few years. Results reported in recent studies allow to rule out a turbulence {\it à la Kolmogorov} as a mechanism acting on a self similar RT turbulent mixing layer. A different mechanism is presented, which complies with both numerical and experimental results and relates RT flow to other buoyant flows.
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is a key process in many fields of Physics ranging from astrophysics to inertial confinement fusion. It is usually analyzed deriving the linearized fluid equations, but the physics behind the instability is not always clear. Recent works on this instability allow for an very intuitive understanding of the phenomenon and for a straightforward calculation of the linear growth rate. In this Letter, it is shown that the same reasoning allows for a direct derivation of the relativistic expression of the linear growth rate for an incompressible fluid.
The acceleration of dense targets driven by the radiation pressure of high-intensity lasers leads to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) with rippling of the interaction surface. Using a simple model it is shown that the self-consistent modulation of the radiation pressure caused by a sinusoidal rippling affects substantially the wavevector spectrum of the RTI depending on the laser polarization. The plasmonic enhancement of the local field when the rippling period is close to a laser wavelength sets the dominant RTI scale. The nonlinear evolution is investigated by three dimensional simulatio…
Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing has critical importance for a broad range of process in nature and technology, from supernovae and plasma fusion to oil recovery and nano-fabrication. In most instances, RT flows are driven by variable acceleration, whereas the bulk of existing studies have considered only constant and impulsive accelerations. By analyzing symmetries of RT dynamics for certain patterns of variable acceleration, we discover a special class of self-similar solutions and identify their scaling, correlations and spectra. We find that dynamics of RT mixing can vary from super-ballistic t…
The first consistent phenomenological theory for two and three dimensional Rayleigh--Taylor (RT) turbulence has recently been presented by Chertkov [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 91} 115001 (2003)]. By means of direct numerical simulations we confirm the spatio/temporal prediction of the theory in two dimensions and explore the breakdown of the phenomenological description due to intermittency effects. We show that small-scale statistics of velocity and temperature follow Bolgiano-Obukhov scaling. At the level of global observables we show that the time-dependent Nusselt and Reynolds numbers scale as …
This work focuses on Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI)driven by acceleration with power-law time-dependence. We review the existing theoretical approaches, apply the group theory approach to solve this long-standing problem, and yield the unified framework for the scale-dependent dynamics of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) bubbles and RT spikes. For the early-time linear dynamics we provide the dependence of RTI evolution on the acceleration parameters and the initial conditions. For the late-time nonlinear dynamics, we find a continuous family of asymptotic solutions, directly link the interface velocit…
3-D extended-MHD simulations of the magnetized ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability are presented for the first time. Previous 2-D simulations claiming perturbation suppression by magnetic tension are shown to be misleading, as they do not include the most unstable dimension. For perturbation modes along the applied field direction, the magnetic field simultaneously reduces ablative stabilization and adds magnetic tension stabilization; the stabilizing term is found to dominate for applied fields >5T, with both effects increasing in importance at short wavelengths. For modes perpendicular to t…
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability plays an important role in the dynamics of several astronomical objects, in particular, in supernovae (SN) evolution. In this paper we develop an analytical approach to study the stability analysis of spherical expansion of the SN ejecta by using a special transformation in the co-moving coordinate frame. We first study a non-stationary spherical expansion of a gas shell under the pressure of a central source. Then we analyze its stability with respect to a no radial, non spherically symmetric perturbation of the of the shell. We consider the case where the poly…
We report on results of high resolution two fluid non-linear simulations of the Rayleigh Taylor Instability (RTI) at the interface between a solar prominence and the corona. These follow results reported earlier by Popescu Braileanu et al. (2021a,b) on linear and early non-linear RTI dynamics in this environment. The simulations use a two fluid model that includes collisions between neutrals and charges, including ionization/recombination, energy and momentum transfer, and frictional heating. High resolution 2.5D magnetized RTI simulations with the magnetic field dominantly normal to and sligh…
The effect of viscous drag and surface tension on the nonlinear two fluid inter facial structures induced by Rayleigh -Taylor instability and Richtmyer-Meshkov instability are investigated.Viscosity and surface tension play important roles on the fluid instabilities. It is seen that the magnitude of the suppression of the terminal growth rate of the tip of the bubble height depends only on the viscous coefficient of the upper (denser) fluid through which the bubble rises and surface tension of the interface. But in regard to spike it is shown that in an inviscid fluid spike does not remain ter…
