Nonlinear ablative Rayleigh–Taylor growth experiments on Shenguang–II
L. F. Wang, J. F. Wu, W. H. Ye, Jiaqin Dong, Ziqi Fang, Guo Jia, Zhiyong Xie, Xiang Huang, S. Z. Fu, S. Y. Zou, Yongkun Ding, W. Y. Zhang, X. T. He
Abstract
Nonlinear evolution of the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability (ARTI) is investigated on the Shenguang-II laser facility using a target specifically designed for this purpose. The evolution of the excited bubbles and spikes is tracked and their displacement amplitudes are quantitatively measured with the help of a Kirkpatrick–Baez microscope coupled with an x-ray framing camera. Radiation-hydrodynamic simulations are qualitatively in agreement with the experiments and demonstrate the phenomenon of bubble acceleration predicted by Betti and Sanz [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 205002 (2006)] in the nonlinear evolution of the ARTI.