  Ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability (ARTI) and nonlocal heat transport are
the critical problems in laser-driven inertial confinement fusion, while their
coupling with each other is not completely understood yet. Here the ARTI in the
presence of nonlocal heat transport is studied self-consistently for the first
time theoretically and by using radiation hydrodynamic simulations. It is found
that the nonlocal heat flux generated by the hot electron transport tends to
attenuate the growth of instability, especially for short wavelength
perturbations. A linear theory of the ARTI coupled with the nonlocal heat flux
is developed, and a prominent stabilization of the ablation front via the
nonlocal heat flux is found, in good agreement with numerical simulations. This
effect becomes more significant as the laser intensity increases. Our results
should have important references for the target designing for inertial
confinement fusion.
