Abstract

The success of inertial confinement fusion depends on achieving a spherically uniform implosion with the lowest level of preheating. The plausible mechanisms which degrade the sphericity of a compressed core are irregularity of laser heating and hydrodynamic instabilities at the pusher–ablater interface in an acceleration phase and at the pusher-fuel interface in a deceleration phase. Thus it is of great importance to study the physics of hydrodynamic instability in spherical target implosion.

© 1986 Optical Society of America