Key to understanding supersonic radiative Marshak waves using simple models and advanced simulations

TL;DR

This paper combines experimental data, a new semi-analytic model, and advanced simulations to understand the physics of supersonic radiative Marshak waves, crucial in fusion and astrophysics.

Contribution

It introduces a simple semi-analytic model and uses advanced simulations to unify and explain diverse experimental results on Marshak wave propagation.

Findings

Identification of dominant physical effects across experiments

Validation of the semi-analytic model against simulations

Explanation of experimental results with a common physical framework

Abstract

This article studies the propagation of supersonic radiative Marshak waves. These waves are radiation dominated, and play an important role in inertial confinement fusion and in astrophysical and laboratory systems. For that reason, this phenomenon has attracted considerable experimental attention in recent decades in several different facilities. The present study integrates the various experimental results published in the literature, demonstrating a common physical base. A new simple semi-analytic model is derived and presented along with advanced radiative hydrodynamic implicit Monte Carlo direct numerical simulations, which explain the experimental results. This study identifies the main physical effects dominating the experiments, notwithstanding their different apparatuses and different physical regimes.