The lab is headed by Dr. Jeff Jacobs,
and
its main focus of research is the experimental study the
Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities. These fluid
instabilities occur at the
interface between fluids of different densities when in the presence of either a constant or impulsive
acceleration respectively.
Both instabilities are the result of baroclinic vorticity generated by the misalignment of pressure and density gradients at the interface.