Supersonic flow through clumpy environments: simulations and experiments

Over the past decade, high resolution images of a number of Herbig-Haro objects using the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed complex, chaotic, evolving morphologies of bow shocks, knots, and filamentary structure. Such morphologies are likely a consequence of internal and terminal working surfaces moving into a medium that is highly inhomogeneous. To investigate how inhomogeneities play a role in shaping the morphology of such objects, laboratory experiments have been proposed to examine bow shock evolution as it propagates through a clumpy environment and subsequent development of small scale structure after shock passage. The experiments will be carried out at the Omega Laser Facility utilizing an existing platform which launches a near planar shock into an RF (C$_{15}$H$_{12}$O$_{4})$ cylinder. Two types of downstream targets will be embedded in the RF cylinder: a clumpy target consisting of a 1mm-diameter RF foam sphere containing $\sim $ 47 randomly distributed 127-$\mu $m diameter ruby microspheres, and a 1 mm-diameter sphere target of ``uniformly'' mixed RF foam with sapphire nanopowder. Calculations pertaining to the experimental configuration will be presented and compared to experimental data, if available.