Early-Time Stability of Decelerating Shocks

Abstract

We consider the decelerating shock instability of Vishniac for a finite layer of constant density. This serves both to clarify which aspects of the Vishniac instability mechanism depend on compressible effects away from the shock front and also to incorporate additional effects of finite layer thickness. This work has implications for experiments attempting to reproduce the essential physics of astrophysical shocks, in particular their minimum necessary lateral dimensions to contain all the relevant dynamics.