Simulations of the non-linear thin shell instability

Abstract

We use three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to study the non-linear thin shell instability (NTSI) in supersonic colliding flows. We show that for flows with monochromatic perturbations and for flows with white-noise perturbations, growth speeds approximate quite well to the analytic predictions of Vishniac (1994). For flows with subsonic turbulence, growth speeds match Vishniac's predictions only at short wavelengths where the turbulence is weaker. We find that supersonic turbulence, of a lower Mach number than the colliding flows, completely suppresses the NTSI. Our results provide a diagnostic for identifying the presence of the NTSI in colliding flows with turbulence.

13 pages, 17 figures; published in MNRAS and available at http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/stt203

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