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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Stability of an impulsively accelerated density interface in magnetohydrodynamics
V Wheatley1, D I Pullin, R Samtaney
1Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
Abstract:
In the framework of ideal incompressible magnetohydrodynamics, we examine the stability of an impulsively accelerated, sinusoidally perturbed density interface in the presence of a magnetic field that is parallel to the acceleration. This is accomplished by analytically solving the linearized initial value problem, which is a model for the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability. We find that the initial growth rate of the interface is unaffected by the presence of a magnetic field, but for a finite magnetic field the interface amplitude asymptotes to a constant value. Thus the instability of the interface is suppressed. The interface behavior from the analytical solution is compared to the results of both linearized and nonlinear compressible numerical simulations.
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