Snezhana Abarzhi
The University of Western Australia, AUS

"High energy density plasmas, fluid instabilities and interfacial mixing"

Abstract: Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) and Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing are common to occur in high energy density plasmas at astrophysical and at atomic scale. Examples include the RTI that quenches ignition in inertial confinement fusion; blast wave induced RT mixing in core-collapse supernova that creates conditions for synthesis of heavy mass elements; the RTI that governs material transformation of under impact in nano-electronics. By analyzing symmetries of RT dynamics in high energy density plasmas and by focusing on certain patterns of variable acceleration, we discover a special class of self-similar solutions and identify their scaling, correlations and spectra. We find that dynamics of RT mixing can vary from super-ballistic to subdiffusive depending on the acceleration and retain memory of deterministic conditions for any acceleration. These rich dynamic properties considerably impact the understanding and control of RT relevant phenomena in high energy density plasmas. Particularly, they reveal the new mechanism for energy accumulation and transport at small scales in supernova, via energy localization and trapping.

Ref: Abarzhi SI et al. 2018 PNAS 1714502115
URL: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1714502115