Variation of parameters of shock heated plasma in the mode of first-type instability development

The nature of the development of shock-heated plasma instabilities is not clear yet. The conducted investigations allowed to obtain simultaneously the information on plasma radiation intensity alteration and data on distribution of electron and gas density in the flux behind the shock wave front under conditions of the development of the first-type instability of shock-heated xenon plasma. The investigations were carried out in the range of variation of Mach numbers of an incident shock wave from 6.5 to 8.6. The initial xenon pressure remained unaltered and equaled 16.7 Torr