https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20136102005
Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov Instabilities in Relativistic Hydrodynamic Jets
1 Center for Computational Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
2 Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
3 Graduate School of System Informatics, Department of Computational Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
a e-mail: jin@cfca.jp,jin.matsumoto@riken.jp
b e-mail: ymasada@harbor.kobe-u.ac.jp
Published online: 9 December 2013
We investigate the stability of relativistic jets using three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. The propagation of relativistic flow that is continuously injected from the boundary of computational domain into a uniform ambient medium is solved. An intriguing finding in our study is that Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov type instabilities grow at the interface between the jet and surrounding medium as a result of spontaneously induced radial oscillating motion. It is powered by in situ energy conversion between the thermal and bulk kinetic energies of the jet. From complementary two-dimensional simulations of transverse structure of the jet, we find the effective inertia ratio of the jet to the surrounding medium determines a threshold for the onset of instabilities. The mixing between light faster jet and slow heavier external matters due to these instabilities causes the deceleration of the jet.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
