Spiky development at the interface in Rayleigh-Taylor instability: Layzer approximation with second harmonic

Abstract

Layzer's approximation method for investigation of two fluid interface structures associated with Rayleigh Taylor instability for arbitrary Atwood number is extended with the inclusion of second harmonic mode leaving out the zeroth harmonic one. The modification makes the fluid velocities vanish at infinity and leads to avoidance of the need to make the unphysical assumption of the existence of a time dependent source at infinity. The present analysis shows that for an initial interface perturbation with curvature exceeding 1/(2sqrt{A}), where $A$ is the Atwood number there occurs an almost free fall of the spike with continuously increasing sharpening as it falls. The curvature at the tip of the spike also increases with Atwood number. Certain initial condition may also result in occurrence of finite time singularity as found in case of conformal mapping technique used earlier. However bubble growth rate is not appreciably affected.