Landau-Darrieus instability in an ablation front

An analytical model that shows the conditions for the existence of the Landau-Darrieus instability of an ablation front is presented. The model seems to agree with recently claimed simulation results [L. Masse et al., Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (Elsevier, Paris, 2000), p. 220]. The model shows that the ablation front can be unstable in absence of gravity when the thermal flux is inhibited within the supercritical region of the corona. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.