A series of experiments were performed examining the evolution of blast waves produced by laser
irradiation of a target immersed in gas. Blast waves were produced by illumination of wires by 1 kJ,
1 ns laser pulses from the Z-Beamlet laser at Sandia National Laboratories. The blast waves were
imaged by probe laser pulses at various times to examine the trajectory, radiative precursor, and
induced perturbations on the blast wave front. Well de.ned perturbations were induced on the blast
wave front with arrays of wires placed in the gas and the results of the experiments are compared
to the theoretical predictions for the Vishniac overstability. It is found that the experimental results
are in general agreement with these theoretical predictions on thin blast wave shells and are in
quantitative agreement in the simplest case.
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