The Rayleigh Taylor instability in partially ionized plasmas: ambipolar diffusion effects in the non linear phase

TL;DR

This study investigates how ion-neutral coupling and ambipolar diffusion influence the Rayleigh-Taylor instability's growth and morphology in partially ionized plasmas, revealing scale-dependent nonlinear behaviors and deviations from classical models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive numerical analysis of ambipolar diffusion effects on RT instability, highlighting nonlinear regime modifications and identifying coupling regimes with significant deviations from single fluid predictions.

Findings

Ambipolar diffusion alters classical quadratic growth in the nonlinear phase.

Intermediate coupling enhances fragmentation in hydrodynamic cases.

Magnetized cases show non-monotonic interface reorganization at intermediate coupling.

Abstract

Aims. We aim to determine how ion neutral coupling and ambipolar diffusion affect the linear and the nonlinear growth of the RTinstability under astrophysically relevant conditions, and to identify the coupling regimes in which departures from the classical single fluid picture become significant. Methods. We perform high resolution two fluid numerical simulations using the MPI AMRVAC code, spanning a wide range of perturbation wavelengths, coupling strengths, from uncoupled to strongly coupled passing by intermediate or ambipolar diffusion dominated regimes, and magnetic field configurations. The linear theory is revisited using a physically consistent formulation with different ion neutral coupling strengths across the interface and validated against the simulations. We investigate the physics of the instability using morphology based diagnostics of the mixing layer to compare simulations at equivalent nonlinear stages, complemented by spectral, force, and energy budgets analyses. Results. In the linear regime, theoretical growth rates are recovered over a wide range of wavelengths, from the single fluid limit to intermediate bi fluid coupling. In the nonlinear regime, ambipolar diffusion modifies the classical quadratic growth and introduces a coupling dependent evolution. For multi wavelength perturbations, the nonlinear dynamics becomes strongly scale dependent: intermediate coupling enhances fragmentation in hydrodynamic configurations, while magnetised cases exhibit a non monotonic reorganisation of the interface, with the smoothest morphologies occurring at intermediate coupling. Spectral and energetic diagnostics indicate that these behaviours correlate with changes in the relative contributions of ion neutral drift and magnetic stresses during thenonlinear evolution