Stability of ablation flows in inertial confinement fusion: non-modal effects

Fast transient growth of hydrodynamic perturbations due to non-modal effects is shown to be possible in an ablation flow relevant to inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Likely to arise in capsule ablators with material inhomogeneities, such growths appear to be too fast to be detected by existing measurement techniques, cannot be predicted by any of the methods previously used for studying hydrodynamic instabilities in ICF, yet could cause early transitions to nonlinear regimes. These findings call for reconsidering the stability of ICF flows within the framework of non-modal stability theory.