The lifespan of spherically symmetric solutions of the compressible Euler equations outside an impermeable sphere

We consider smooth three-dimensional spherically symmetric Eulerian flows of ideal polytropic gases outside an impermeable sphere, with initial data equal to the sum of a constant flow with zero velocity and a smooth perturbation with compact support. Under a natural assumption on the form of the perturbation, we obtain precise information on the asymptotic behavior of the lifespan as the size of the perturbation tends to 0. When there is no sphere, so that the flow is defined in all space, corresponding results have been obtained in [P. Godin, The lifespan of a class of smooth spherically symmetric solutions of the compressible Euler equations with variable entropy in three space dimensions, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 177 (2005) 479–511].