Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability in the Turbulent Regime

We investigate the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in the turbulent regime with three-dimensional random interfacial perturbations. Experiments are conducted on the Nova laser with strong radiatively driven shocks (Mach>20) in planar, two-fluid targets. The mixing zone at the interface is found to increase in time as h~t^β with β~0.6±0.1. Hydrodynamic simulations in 2D obtain similar values of h over the observation time, but with a larger exponent. A heuristic turbulent impulsive model is offered to identify the underlying processes.