Direct observation of feedout-related mass oscillations in plastic targets

"Feedout" means the transfer of mass perturbations from the rear to the front surface of a driven target. When a planar shock wave breaks out at a rippled rear surface of the target, a lateral pressure gradient drives sonic waves in a rippled rarefaction wave propagating back to the front surface. This process redistributes mass in the volume of the target, forming the feedout-generated seed for ablative Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability. We report the first direct experimental observation of areal-mass oscillation associated with feedout, followed by the onset of exponential RT growth.