Instability of a planar expansion wave

An expansion wave is produced when an incident shock wave interacts with a surface separating a fluid from a vacuum. Such an interaction starts the feedout process that transfers perturbations from the rippled inner (rear) to the outer (front) surface of a target in inertial confinement fusion. Being essentially a standing sonic wave superimposed on a centered expansion wave, a rippled expansion wave in an ideal gas, like a rippled shock wave, typically produces decaying oscillations of all fluid variables. Its behavior, however, is different at large and small values of the adiabatic exponent γ. At γ>3, the mass modulation amplitude δm in a rippled expansion wave exhibits a power-law growth with time ∝t^β, where β=(γ−3)∕(γ−1). This is the only example of a hydrodynamic instability whose law of growth, dependent on the equation of state, is expressed in a closed analytical form. The growth is shown to be driven by a physical mechanism similar to that of a classical Richtmyer-Meshkov instability. In the opposite extreme γ−1⪡1, δm exhibits oscillatory growth, approximately linear with time, until it reaches its peak value ∼(γ−1)^−1∕2, and then starts to decrease. The mechanism driving the growth is the same as that of Vishniac’s instability of a blast wave in a gas with low γ. Exact analytical expressions for the growth rates are derived for both cases and favorably compared to hydrodynamic simulation results.