Rayleigh–Taylor Instability in Electron–Ion Radiative Dense Plasmas

Abstract

A new feature of electromagnetic radiation is studied by investigating the Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instability in a radiative electron–ion magnetoplasma. Within the adiabatic limit, the linear RT instability supports against the gravity and is primarily provided by the radiation pressure, which is a complicated function of both temperature and density concentration of electrons. It is examined that, for superdense plasma environments, the radiation pressure becomes comparable or even more than the usual gas pressure, which may lead to enhance the growth rate of RT instability via varying the electron temperature and density concentration. Diamagnetic drifts are also taken into account due to the presence of thermal and radiation pressures apart from the gravitational drift. The results of RT instability are significantly affected by the variation of radiation pressure in dense magnetized nonuniform plasmas and have relevance for understanding dense astrophysical environments, such as massive star clusters and white dwarfs.