Ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability with strong temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity

Abstract

An asymptotic analysis of Rayleigh–Taylor unstable ablation fronts encountered in inertial confinement fusion is performed in the case of a strong temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity. At leading order the nonlinear analysis leads to a free boundary problem which is an extension of the classical Rayleigh–Taylor instability with unity Atwood number and an additional potential flow of negligible density expelled perpendicular to the front. The nonlinear evolution of the front is analysed in two-dimensional geometry by a boundary integral method. The shape of the front develops a curvature singularity within a finite time, as for the Birkhoff–Rott equation for the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability.