Nonlinear Rayleigh–Taylor Growth in Spherical Geometry

Engineering features (stalks, tents, fill tubes, etc.) produce localized mass modulations that are amplified by the Rayleigh–Taylor instability developed during shell acceleration in inertial confinement fusion implosions. Growth of these features leads to shell breakup and injection of ablator and cold fuel material into the target vapor region. To gain physics insight, an analytic model describing the growth of these features has been developed. The model is based on the Layzer-type approach.[1] The talk will discuss the results of the model used to study the perturbation growth in an imploding shell. In particular, interactions between different spherical harmonics (m modes) will be presented. Comparison with numerical simulations will be discussed.

[1] V. N. Goncharov and D. Li, Phys. Rev. E 71, 046306 (2005).