Measurement of the decay rate of single-frequency perturbations on blast waves

To explore the validity of theories forwarded to explain the dynamics of hydrodynamic perturbations on high Mach number blast waves, we have studied the decay rate of perturbations on blast waves traveling through nitrogen gas. In our experiments, 1 kJ pulses from the Z-Beamlet laser at Sandia National Laboratories illuminated solid targets immersed in gas and created blast waves. The polytropic index implied by comparing experiment to theoretical predictions is compared to simulation results.