Observation of Rayleigh-Taylor-Instability Evolution in a Plasma with Magnetic and Viscous Effects

Abstract

We present time-resolved observations of Rayleigh--Taylor-instability (RTI) evolution at the interface between an unmagnetized plasma jet colliding with a stagnated, magnetized plasma. The observed instability growth time ($\sim 10$~$\mu$s) is consistent with the estimated linear RTI growth rate calculated using experimentally inferred values of density ($\sim 10^{14}$~cm${}^{-3}$) and deceleration ($\sim 10^9$~m/s${}^2$). The observed mode wavelength ($\gtrsim 1$~cm) nearly doubles within a linear growth time. Theoretical estimates of magnetic and viscous stabilization and idealized magnetohydrodynamic simulations including a physical viscosity model both suggest that the observed instability evolution is subject to magnetic and/or viscous effects.

6 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review E (2015)

References in corpus (5)

• Experimental characterization of railgun-driven supersonic plasma jets motivated by high energy density physics applications
• Experimental evidence for collisional shock formation via two obliquely merging supersonic plasma jets
• Laboratory plasma physics experiments using merging supersonic plasma jets
• Experimental characterization of a transition from collisionless to collisional interaction between head-on-merging supersonic plasma jets
• Multi-chord fiber-coupled interferometry of supersonic plasma jets and comparisons with synthetic data

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner
• The effect of viscosity and resistivity on Rayleigh-Taylor instability induced mixing in magnetized high energy density plasmas
• Experimental Study of Ion Heating in Obliquely Merging Hypersonic Plasma Jets
• Role of electron inertia and electron/ion finite Larmor radius effects in low-beta, magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability
• Rayleigh-Taylor instability in inhomogeneous relativistic classical and degenerate electron-ion magnetoplasmas