Richtmyer–Meshkov instability in liquid metal flows: influence of cavitation and magnetic fields

Abstract

The influence of magnetic fields and cavitation on the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability in liquid mercury has been studied numerically in 2D geometry. Numerical results shed light on the evolution of the Muon Collider target proposed as a pulsed jet of mercury interacting with high intensity proton beams in a strong magnetic field. We have shown that a uniform longitudinal magnetic field significantly reduces amplitudes and velocities of surface instabilities and is able to stabilize the jet during period of time typical for the jet breakup at zero magnetic field. We have developed a simple homogeneous two-phase equation of state for modeling of liquids with cavitation bubbles and applied it to the study of the evolution of mercury due to the interaction with proton pulses.