Radiative ablation with two ionizing fronts when opacity displays a sharp absorption edge.

The interaction of a strong flux of photons with matter through an ionizing front (I-front) is an ubiquitous phenomenon in the context of astrophysics and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) where intense sources of radiation put matter into motion. When the opacity of the irradiated material varies continuously in the radiation spectral domain, only one single I-front is formed. In contrast, as numerical simulations tend to show, when the opacity of the irradiated material presents a sharp edge in the radiation spectral domain, a second I-front (an edge front) can form. A full description of the mechanism behind the formation of this edge front is presented in this article. It allows us to understand extra shocks (edge-shocks), displayed by ICF simulations, that might affect the robustness of the design of fusion capsules in actual experiments. Moreover, it may have consequences in various domains of astrophysics where ablative flows occur.