Late stages of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability: A numerical study in the context of accreting neutron stars

The development of the Rayleigh-Taylor (or interchange) instability in the fully nonlinear regime is explored using a two-dimensional, compressible magnetohydrodynamics code. Motivation for this work stems from models of accreting X-ray sources, according to which the infalling matter encounters the magnetosphere of a neutron star, and interchange modes are driven transverse to the direction of the magnetic field. In previous studies, swirling motions that act to mix the media on relatively small scales were found to develop along the boundary