Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities in stratified fluids

Abstract
We present an analytic theory of Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities in an arbitrary number N of stratified fluids subjected to a shock. Following our earlier work on Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, the theory assumes incompressible flow in which a shock is treated as an impulsive acceleration. We discuss the special cases N=2 and N=3, and illustrate both Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities by examples patterned after inertial-confinement-fusion implosions.