2D Linear Perturbation

The response of a steady radiative shock to a linear perturbation in 2D was investigated by dropping a small cloudlet into the shock front. In this simulation the Mach number is 5 and the cooling exponent alpha is 0. The perturbation excites the planar oscillations of the shock front as expected from 1D analysis, but it also excites non-planar oscillations in the cooling region.
Transverse Velocity showing the evolution of the non-planar mode. The non-planar mode grows, peaks, and decays away. Gray in these images represents zero transverse velocity, yellow is up, and blue is down.

An mpeg movie of the transverse velocity


Density at the time of maximum amplitude of the non-planar oscillations.


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