Complex Hydrodynamic Instabilities on Oblique Interfaces

Hydrodynamic instabilities are important phenomena that occur in high energy-density systems in which pressure, density and velocity gradients exist. These instabilities lead to mixing across interfaces which can greatly impact the performance of the systems they are in. This is seen in the evolution of super-novae as well as inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions. When a shock is incident normal to an interface, the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) process is driven, which grows impulsively at early times. When an oblique shock interacts with an interface a shear flow is driven in addition to the impulsive acceleration. This shear flow drives Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) in addition to RM. Recent work has demonstrated that an oblique shock incident on a perturbed interface can result in growth which is dominated by RM early in time, but asymptotes to a KH-like vorticity distribution.