Magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor Instability during ICF Coasting Stage

We investigate the development of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) under Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) coasting stage conditions, using fully resolved simulations of two-fluid plasma equations with realistic DT plasma transport phenomena. The simulations start from hydrostatic equilibrium at the interface between the hot spot and surrounding colder plasma under accelerations typical of ICF, and are performed at different hot spot temperatures, T₀=0.75-4.5 keV, and densities, n₀=10²⁶-10³¹ cm^-3. We discover that RTI development can be characterized by two critical n₀ values which increase exponentially with T₀ and decrease with Atwood number. Fully developed RTI is observed only when n₀ is larger than the upper threshold value. Below the lower threshold value, RTI is completely suppressed by electron thermal diffusion. In addition, the Biermann battery torque increases with n₀ and saturates at sufficiently large n₀ values.