Post-processing of face-on radiographic images for quantitative analysis in ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability experiments

Abstract An experiment was performed at the National Ignition Facility investigating the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability’s dependence on initial conditions in the highly nonlinear stage. The detailed post-processing of the radiographic images which includes backlighter reconstruction, Wiener deconvolution of the raw data, and the calculation of a conversion factor from optical depth to physical units. The results of these calculations were fed into the primary analysis of the experimental data, with this manuscript serving as a supplemental reference to the primary paper [1].