| In Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions, a cold target material is accelerated by a hot, low density plasma. The surface between the heavy and light materials is Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) unstable similar to the interface between two fluids of constant densities {dollar}rhosb{lcub}h{rcub}{dollar} and {dollar}rhosb{lcub}l{rcub}{dollar} subject to a gravitational field g pointing toward the lighter fluid {dollar}rhosb{lcub}l{rcub}.{dollar} The classical treatment of the sharp-interface RT instability leads to a linear growth rate {dollar}gammasb{lcub}cl{rcub}=sqrt{lcub}Asb{lcub}T{rcub}kg{rcub},{dollar} where k is the perturbation wave number, g is the acceleration, and {dollar}Asb{lcub}T{rcub}=(rhosb{lcub}h{rcub}-rhosb{lcub}l{rcub})/(rhosb{lcub}h{rcub}+rhosb{lcub}l{rcub}){dollar} is the Atwood number. In this thesis, the linear stability analysis of accelerated ICF targets is carried out including the effects of ablative flow and finite thermal conduction. The thermal conductivity {dollar}kappa{dollar} has a power law dependence on the temperature, {dollar}kappasim Tsp{lcub}nu{rcub},{dollar} with a power index {dollar}nu.{dollar} It is shown that the physical mechanisms inherent to the ablative compression (finite density-gradient scale-length, mass flow across the ablation region, transverse and lateral thermal conductivity, etc.) reduce the classical growth rate of the unstable modes {dollar}gamma |
