Effects of compressibility on the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in Z-pinch implosions

The effects of compressibility on the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in Z-pinch implosion plasmas are investigated by means of simple slab geometry.The linear mode equation,which includes main steady-state quantities and their gradients,is derived.Numerical solutions are presented.The incompressible fluid result is also obtained.These results indicate that the linear growth rate of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability for the compressible magnetohydrodynamic fluid is far larger than one in the incompressible situation.Therefore,the compressible systems are all more unstable than the incompressible ones.