Shallow water analogue of the standing accretion shock instability: experimental demonstration and a two-dimensional model

Thierry Foglizzo (1) , Frédéric Masset (1, 2) , Jérôme Guilet (1, 3) , Gilles Durand (1)

1 AIM (UMR_7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
2 UNAM - Instituto de Matematicas
3 DAMTP - Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics [Cambridge]

Despite the sphericity of the collapsing stellar core, the birth conditions of neutron stars can be highly nonspherical due to a hydrodynamical instability of the shocked accretion flow. Here we report the first laboratory experiment of a shallow water analogue, based on the physics of hydraulic jumps. Both the experiment and its shallow water modeling demonstrate a robust linear instability and nonlinear properties of symmetry breaking, in a system which is one million times smaller and about one hundred times slower than its astrophysical analogue.

Mots clés: Supernovae; Laboratory experiments and apparatus; Flow instabilities; Hydrodynamics; Physics - Fluid Dynamics; Physics - Popular Physics

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Thierry Foglizzo, Frédéric Masset, Jérôme Guilet, Gilles Durand. Shallow water analogue of the standing accretion shock instability: experimental demonstration and a two-dimensional model. Physical Review Letters, 2012, 108, pp.051103. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.051103⟩. ⟨insu-03622420⟩