Ablative stabilization of the deceleration phase Rayleigh-Taylor instability

The growth rates of the deceleration-phase Rayleigh-Taylor instability for imploding inertial confinement fusion capsules are calculated and compared with the results of numerical simulations. It is found that the unstable spectrum and the growth rates are significantly reduced by the finite ablation flow at the shell's inner surface. For typical direct-drive capsules designed for the National Ignition Facility, the unstable spectrum exhibits a cutoff for l approximate to 90.