Experimental Study on the Interaction of Cylindrical Converging Shock Waves with Sinusoidal Light-Heavy Interface

Abstract

Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability occurs when an initially perturbed interface separating two different fluids is impulsively accelerated by a shock wave, which was first investigated theoretically by Richtmyer [1] and experimentally by Meshkov [2] in planar case, suggesting a central role for understanding the hydrodynamic processes involved in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The instability results from the misalignment between the pressure gradient across the shock and the density gradient across the interface, so-called the induction of baroclinic forces, which also dominates the Rayleigh [3]-Taylor [4] (RT) instability in which the pressure gradient is caused by a force field. During the past 20 years, the planar RM instability was discussed extensively. However, the physical background of ICF cares more about the interaction of a spherical converging shock wave with a spherical disturbed interface, in which the RM instability seriously affects the efficiency of focusing on the ignition. For this great significance, research on the converging RM instability is needed.