Heat transfer and transport property contrast effects on the compressible Rayleigh-Taylor instability

We systematically examine how heat conduction between two fluids at different temperatures, large contrasts in transport properties, and sudden changes in transport properties can affect the fully compressible Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) using direct numerical simulations. These variations cause departures from the classical self-similar development of the RTI, along with misalignment between regions of mixing and regions of most intense turbulent activity. Under certain conditions, dynamical quantities such as vorticity and dissipation appear to depend only on the transport properties and not on past flow history.