Design of a Rayleigh-Taylor experiment to measure strength at high pressures

We present a design to measure the strength of a metal at very high pressures using the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The target consists of a metal foil behind a tamper and an ablator, driven by soft x rays generated in a hohlraum at the Nation Ignition Facility or Laser Megajoule. Since ignition capsules and strength targets both call for quasiadiabatic drives, we use the early, 0-16 ns, part of the ignition pulse to drive an almost-10-Mb strength experiment. We also discuss variations on how initial perturbations may be placed at the metal/tamper interface, resulting in a high-pressure microindentation technique. We illustrate the time-evolution of perturbations under various assumptions concerning tantalum strength.