Deterministic and stochastic dynamics of Rayleigh–Taylor mixing with a power-law time-dependent acceleration

Abstract

Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) mixing occurs in a variety of natural and man-made phenomena in fluids, plasmas and materials, from celestial event to atoms. In many circumstances, RT flows are driven by variable acceleration, whereas majority of existing studies have considered only sustained acceleration. In this work we perform detailed analytical and numerical study of RT mixing with a power-law time-dependent acceleration. A set of deterministic nonlinear non-homogeneous ordinary differential equations and nonlinear stochastic differential equations with multiplicative noise are derived on the basis of momentum model. For a broad range of parameters, self-similar asymptotic solutions are found analytically, and their statistical properties are studied numerically. We identify two sub-regimes of RT mixing dynamics depending on the acceleration exponent—the acceleration-driven mixing and dissipation-driven mixing. Transition between the sub-regimes is studied, and it is found that each sub-regime has its own characteristic dimensionless invariant quantity.