TITLE:
Similarity of Rayleigh-Taylor Instability Development on Scales from 1 mm to One Light Year
AUTHORS:
Michael C. Kelley, Eugene Dao, Carolyn Kuranz, Hans Stenbaek-Nielsen
KEYWORDS:
Rayleigh-Taylor Instability, Decelerating Fluid, Exploding Star, Active Experiment
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Vol.1 No.4,
December
19,
2011
ABSTRACT: In this paper, we describe three different phenomena occurring on scales of 1 mm, 100 km, and almost a light year. The smallest scale is a laboratory experiment. The intermediate scale is a rocket-borne space experiment and the largest is an exploding star. In each case, deceleration creates a situation that is unstable to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The similarity exists in the spatial and in the Fourier domains; that is, not only are there obvious spatial similarities but the power spectra of the two phenomena are also nearly identical. The data compare favorably to published simulations.