On the influence of opacity variation on spatial structure of radiative shocks

We provide a theoretical analysis of Radiative Shocks, defined as supercritical shocks accompanied by an ionization wave in front of the density jump. In particular, we look at the influence of opacity variation with temperature and photon energy on spatial structure of radiative shocks, with a view to understanding a split precursor feature observed in recent experiments. We show that multigroup processing, a more refined angular description and improved low temperature opacities are needed to explore the radiative precursor structure, at least in some temperature regimes where rapid change of ionization can be found.