title: Evidence for a bubble-competition regime in indirectly driven ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability experiments on the NIF.
abstract: We investigate on the National Ignition Facility the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the transition from weakly nonlinear to highly nonlinear regimes. A planar plastic package with preimposed two-dimensional broadband modulations is accelerated for up to 12 ns by the x-ray drive of a gas-filled Au radiation cavity with a radiative temperature plateau at 175 eV. This extended tailored drive allows a distance traveled in excess of 1 mm for a 130  μm thick foil. Measurements of the modulation optical density performed by x-ray radiography show that a bubble-merger regime for the Rayleigh-Taylor instability at an ablation front is achieved for the first time in indirect drive. The mutimode modulation amplitudes are in the nonlinear regime, grow beyond the Haan multimode saturation level, evolve toward the longer wavelengths, and show insensitivity to the initial conditions.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Martinez
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
authors.forename: V A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Smalyuk
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
authors.forename: J O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Kane
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Casner
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liberatore
authors.affiliation: CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
authors.forename: L P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Masse