Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in high-energy density settings on the National Ignition Facility

We present research results on the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability at an unstable interface under high-energy density conditions using the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. We can reach pressures in the 100-TPa regime on the Hugoniot, or ∼500-GPa regime along a quasi-isentrope, allowing the sample under study to remain solid, at planetary interior pressures. We observe RT stabilization (i) at an ablation front; (ii) in the presence of a strongly radiative shock; and (iii) in a unique regime of quasi-isentropic, high pressure, solid-state material flow, where the material strength significantly affects the evolution of a hydrodynamically unstable interface.