High resolution simulations of the single-wavelength Richtmyer-Meshkov flow

The single-mode Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability was investigated in three dimensions, using the compressible FLASH code, with Adaptive Mesh Refinement with effective resolution of up to 256 zones/$\lambda$, where $\lambda$ is the wavelength of perturbation. The massively parallel capability of this code permitted investigation of this flow in computationally difficult regimes: Mach numbers up to 15, small initial amplitudes to ensure linearity of perturbations, and fluids with starkly different compressibilities. Linear and nonlinear theories of RM were evaluated under these conditions, and our findings will be presented. Other effects such as dimensionality, and Atwood number dependence were also studied.