Suppression of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability through accretion

The nonlinear growth of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in an accelerated shell can be reduced by arranging for the shell to sweep up material as it moves. Momentum conservation preferentially slows the thinner ‘‘bubble’’ portions of the perturbed shell, which lead the ‘‘spikes.’’ Results are presented from calculations based on the spherical thin-shell model.