2022/2024 : Postdoc : Simulations of the turbulent Rayleigh-Taylor instablility using a diffuse model

The Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI)1 , appearing at accelerated interfaces between variable density fluids, is ubiquitous in nature with numerous astrophysics or geophysics applications. It is also a crucial mechanism in inertial confinement fusion as the mixing produced by the hydrodynamics instabilities determine the neutron yield of the capsule2 . Still, many fundamental questions remain concerning the development of RTI, in particular in the late time self-similar regime where the turbulent mixing zone (TMZ) appears particularly sensitive to the structure of turbulence at large scales. Hence, whether the miscibility or non-miscibility of the fluids influences the TMZ growth rate is an ongoing debate.

In this project, we will study the importance of the fluid miscibility on the RTI dynamics using highly resolved simulations with a pseudo-spectral code.

Contact : Benoit-Joseph GREA ; Antoine BRIARD