Self-similar Rayleigh–Taylor mixing with accelerations varying in time and space

Abstract

As a ubiquitous paradigm of instabilities and mixing that occur in instances as diverse as supernovae, plasma fusion, oil recovery, and nanofabrication, the Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) problem is rightly regarded as important. The acceleration of the fluid medium in these instances often depends on time and space, whereas most past studies assume it to be constant or impulsive. Here, we analyze the symmetries of RT mixing for variable accelerations and obtain the scaling of correlations and spectra for classes of self-similar dynamics. RT mixing is shown to retain the memory of deterministic conditions for all accelerations, with the dynamics ranging from superballistic to subdiffusive. These results contribute to our understanding and control of the RT phenomena and reveal specific conditions under which Kolmogorov turbulence might be realized in RT mixing.