EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF CLASSICAL VERSUS ABLATIVE RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY

The evolution of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a compressible med ium has been investigated both at an accelerating embedded interface a nd at the ablation front in experiments on the Nova laser. Planar targ ets of brominated plastic for the ablation front and brominated plasti c backed by a titanium payload for the embedded interface were ablativ ely accelerated by the x-ray drive generated in a gold Hohlraum. When the perturbation is at the ablation front, short wavelength modes are stabilized, whereas at the embedded interface the shortest wavelengths grow the mast.