Global entropy solutions to the relativistic Euler equations for a class of large initial data

We are concerned with global entropy solutions to the relativistic Euler equations for a class of large initial data which involve the interaction of shock waves and rarefaction waves. We first carefully analyze the global behavior of the shock curves, the rarefaction wave curves, and their corresponding inverse curves in the phase plane. Based on these analyses, we use the Glimm scheme to construct global entropy solutions to the relativistic Euler equations for the class of large discontinuous initial data.     

Stability of Riemann solutions with large oscillation for the relativistic Euler equations

We are concerned with entropy solutions of the 2×2 relativistic Euler equations for perfect fluids in special relativity. We establish the uniqueness of Riemann solutions in the class of entropy solutions in L^∞∩BV_loc with arbitrarily large oscillation. Our proof for solutions with large oscillation is based on a detailed analysis of global behavior of shock curves in the phase space and on special features of centered rarefaction waves in the physical plane for this system. The uniqueness result does not require specific reference to any particular method for constructing the entropy solutions. Then the uniqueness of Riemann solutions yields their inviscid large-time stability under arbitrarily largeL¹∩L^∞∩BV_loc perturbation of the Riemann initial data, as long as the corresponding solutions are in L^∞ and have local bounded total variation that allows the linear growth in time. We also extend our approach to deal with the uniqueness and stability of Riemann solutions containing vacuum in the class of entropy solutions in L^∞ with arbitrarily large oscillation.     

Non-relativistic global limits of entropy solutions to the isentropic relativistic Euler equations

We consider in this paper the relativistic Euler equations in isentropic fluids with the equation of state p = κ²ρ, where κ, the sound speed, is a constant less than the speed of light c. We discuss the convergence of the entropy solutions as c→∞. The analysis is based on the geometric properties of nonlinear wave curves and the Glimm’s method.     

Stability of the Riemann solutions for a nonstrictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws

We prove that the Riemann solutions are stable for a nonstrictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws under local small perturbations of the Riemann initial data. The proof is based on the detailed analysis of the interactions of delta shock waves with shock waves and rarefaction waves. During the interaction process of the delta shock wave with the rarefaction wave, a new kind of nonclassical wave, namely a delta contact discontinuity, is discovered here, which is a Dirac delta function supported on a contact discontinuity and has already appeared in the interaction process for the magnetohydrodynamics equations [M. Nedeljkov and M. Oberguggenberger, Interactions of delta shock waves in a strictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 344 (2008) 1143-1157]. Moreover, the global structures and large time asymptotic behaviors of the solutions are constructed and analyzed case by case.     

Existence and continuous dependence of large solutions for the magnetohydrodynamic equations

Global solutions of the nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations with general large initial data are investigated. First the existence and uniqueness of global solutions are established with large initial data in H ¹. It is shown that neither shock waves nor vacuum and concentration are developed in a finite time, although there is a complex interaction between the hydrodynamic and magnetodynamic effects. Then the continuous dependence of solutions upon the initial data is proved. The equivalence between the well-posedness problems of the system in Euler and Lagrangian coordinates is also showed.     

Stability of steady multi-wave configurations for the full Euler equations of compressible fluid flow

We are concerned with the stability of steady multi-wave configurations for the full Euler equations of compressible fluid flow. In this paper, we focus on the stability of steady four-wave configurations that are the solutions of the Riemann problem in the flow direction, consisting of two shocks, one vortex sheet, and one entropy wave, which is one of the core multi-wave configurations for the two-dimensional Euler equations. It is proved that such steady four-wave configurations in supersonic flow are stable in structure globally, even under the BV perturbation of the incoming flow in the flow direction. In order to achieve this, we first formulate the problem as the Cauchy problem (initial value problem) in the flow direction, and then develop a modified Glimm difference scheme and identify a Glimm-type functional to obtain the required BV estimates by tracing the interactions not only between the strong shocks and weak waves, but also between the strong vortex sheet/entropy wave and weak waves. The key feature of the Euler equations is that the reflection coefficient is always less than $1$, when a weak wave of different family interacts with the strong vortex sheet/entropy wave or the shock wave, which is crucial to guarantee that the Glimm functional is decreasing. Then these estimates are employed to establish the convergence of the approximate solutions to a global entropy solution, close to the background solution of steady four-wave configuration.     

On the Riemann problem for 2D compressible Euler equations in three pieces

The Riemann problem for two-dimensional isentropic Euler equations is considered. The initial data are three constants in three fan domains forming different angles. Under the assumption that only a rarefaction wave, shock wave or contact discontinuity connects two neighboring constant initial states, it is proved that the cases involving three shock or rarefaction waves are impossible. For the cases involving one rarefaction (shock) wave and two shock (rarefaction) waves, only the combinations when the three elementary waves have the same sign are possible (impossible).     

Riemann problem with Delta initial data for the relativistic Chaplygin Euler equations

In this paper, we study the Riemann problem with the initial data containing the Dirac delta function for the relativistic Chaplygin Euler equations. Under the generalized Rankine-Hugoniot conditions and entropy condition, we constructively obtain the global existence of generalized solutions including delta shock waves that explicitly exhibit four kinds of different structures. Moreover, we obtain the stability of generalized solutions by making use of the perturbation of the initial data     

Riemann problem with delta initial data for the isentropic relativistic Chaplygin Euler equations

In this paper, we study the Riemann problem with the initial data containing the Dirac delta function for the isentropic relativistic Chaplygin Euler equations. Under suitably generalized Rankine–Hugoniot relation and entropy condition, we constructively obtain the global existence of generalized solutions including delta shock waves that explicitly exhibit four kinds of different structures. Moreover, it can be found that the solutions constructed here are stable for the perturbation of the initial data.     

Cauchy problem with general discontinuous initial data along a smooth curve for 2-d Euler system

We study the Cauchy problems for the isentropic 2-d Euler system with discontinuous initial data along a smooth curve. All three singularities are present in the solution: shock wave, rarefaction wave and contact discontinuity. We show that the usual restrictive high order compatibility conditions for the initial data are automatically satisfied. The local existence of piecewise smooth solution containing all three waves is established.     

The ultra‐relativistic Euler equations

We study the ultra‐relativistic Euler equations for an ideal gas, which is a system of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws. We first analyze the single shocks and rarefaction waves and solve the Riemann problem in a constructive way. Especially, we develop an own parametrization for single shocks, which will be used to derive a new explicit shock interaction formula. This shock interaction formula plays an important role in the study of the ultra‐relativistic Euler equations. One application will be presented in this paper, namely, the construction of explicit solutions including shock fronts, which gives an interesting example for the non‐backward uniqueness of our hyperbolic system. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GLOBAL STABILITY OF SOLUTIONS WITH DISCONTINUOUS INITIAL DATA CONTAINING VACUUM STATES FOR THE RELATIVISTIC EULER EQUATIONS

The global stability of Lipschitz continuous solutions with discontinuous initial data for the relativistic Euler equations is established in a broad class of entropy solutions in L∞containing vacuum states. As a corollary, the uniqueness of Lipschitz solutions with discontinuous initial data is obtained in the broad class of entropy solutions in     

Global existence of shock front solutions in 1-dimensional piston problem in the relativistic Euler equations

The paper studies the 1-D piston problem of the relativistic Euler equations when the speed of the piston is a perturbation of a constant. A sequence of approximate solutions constructed by a modified Glimm scheme is proved to be convergent to the weak solution (which includes a strong leading shock) to the piston problem. In particular, we give the precise estimates on the reflection of the perturbed waves on the piston and the leading shock. The paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 10626034) and the Special Research Fund for Selecting Excellent Young Teachers of the Universities in Shanghai.     

Analysis on linear stability of oblique shock waves in steady supersonic flow

An attached oblique shock wave is generated when a sharp solid projectile flies supersonically in the air. We study the linear stability of oblique shock waves in steady supersonic flow under three dimensional perturbation in the incoming flow. Euler system of equations for isentropic gas model is used. The linear stability is established for shock front with supersonic downstream flow, in addition to the usual entropy condition.     

The formation of trapped surfaces in spherically-symmetric Einstein–Euler spacetimes with bounded variation

We study the evolution of a self-gravitating compressible fluid in spherical symmetry and we prove the existence of weak solutions with bounded variation for the Einstein–Euler equations of general relativity. We formulate the initial value problem in Eddington–Finkelstein coordinates and prescribe spherically symmetric data on a characteristic initial hypersurface. We introduce here a broad class of initial data which contain no trapped surfaces, and we then prove that their Cauchy development contains trapped surfaces. We therefore establish the formation of trapped surfaces in weak solutions to the Einstein equations. This result generalizes a theorem by Christodoulou for regular vacuum spacetimes (but without symmetry restriction). Our method of proof relies on a generalization of the “random choice” method for nonlinear hyperbolic systems and on a detailed analysis of the nonlinear coupling between the Einstein equations and the relativistic Euler equations in spherical symmetry.     

THE VORTEX BLOB METHOD AS A SECOND-GRADE NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID

We show that a certain class of vortex blob approximations for ideal hydrodynamics in two dimensions can be rigorously understood as solutions to the equations of second-grade non-Newtonian fluids with zero viscosity and initial data in the space of Radon measures M (R ²). The solutions of this regularized PDE, also known as the isotropic Lagrangian averaged Euler or Euler-α equations, are geodesics on the volume preserving diffeomorphism group with respect to a new weak right invariant metric. We prove global existence of unique weak solutions (geodesics) for initial vorticity in M (R ²) such as point-vortex data, and show that the associated coadjoint orbit is preserved by the flow. Moreover, solutions of this particular vortex blob method converge to solutions of the Euler equations with bounded initial vorticity, provided that the initial data is approximated weakly in measure, and the total variation of the approximation also converges. In particular, this includes grid-based approximation schemes as are common in practical vortex computations.     

Interactions of delta shock waves for the relativistic Chaplygin Euler equations with split delta functions

In this article, we are concerned with the interactions of delta shock waves with contact discontinuities for the relativistic Euler equations for Chaplygin gas by using split delta functions method. The solutions are obtained constructively and globally when the initial data consists of three piecewise constant states. The global structure and large time‐asymptotic behaviors of the solutions are analyzed case by case. During the process of the interaction, the strengths of delta shock waves are computed completely. Moreover, it can be found that the Riemann solutions are stable for such small perturbations with special initial data by letting perturbed parameter ε tends to zero. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characteristic decompositions and interactions of rarefaction waves of 2-D Euler equations

This paper is concerned with classical solutions to the interaction of two arbitrary planar rarefaction waves for the self-similar Euler equations in two space dimensions. We develop the direct approach, started in Chen and Zheng (in press) [3], to the problem to recover all the properties of the solutions obtained via the hodograph transformation of Li and Zheng (2009) [14]. The direct approach, as opposed to the hodograph transformation, is straightforward and avoids the common difficulties of the hodograph transformation associated with simple waves and boundaries. The approach is made up of various characteristic decompositions of the self-similar Euler equations for the speed of sound and inclination angles of characteristics.     

Non-relativistic global limits of entropy solutions to the extremely relativistic Euler equations

We are concerned in this paper with the non-relativistic global limits of the entropy solutions to the Cauchy problem of 3 × 3 system of relativistic Euler equations modeling the conservation of baryon numbers, momentum, and energy respectively. Based on the detailed geometric properties of nonlinear wave curves in the phase space and the Glimm’s method, we obtain, for the isothermal flow, the convergence of the entropy solutions to the solutions of the corresponding classical non-relativistic Euler equations as the speed of light c → +∞.     

The analytical solution of two interesting hyperbolic problems as a test case for a finite volume method with a new grid refinement technique

A finite volume method with grid adaption is applied to two hyperbolic problems: the ultra-relativistic Euler equations, and a scalar conservation law. Both problems are considered in two space dimensions and share the common feature of moving shock waves. In contrast to the classical Euler equations, the derivation of appropriate initial conditions for the ultra-relativistic Euler equations is a non-trivial problem that is solved using one-dimensional shock conditions and the Lorentz invariance of the system. The discretization of both problems is based on a finite volume method of second order in both space and time on a triangular grid. We introduce a variant of the min-mod limiter that avoids unphysical states for the Euler system. The grid is adapted during the integration process. The frequency of grid adaption is controlled automatically in order to guarantee a fine resolution of the moving shock fronts. We introduce the concept of “width refinement” which enlarges the width of strongly refined regions around the shock fronts; the optimal width is found by a numerical study. As a result we are able to improve efficiency by decreasing the number of adaption steps. The performance of the finite volume scheme is compared with several lower order methods.