Stability of contact discontinuity for the Boltzmann equation

The Boltzmann equation which describes the time evolution of a large number of particles through the binary collision in statistics physics has close relation to the systems of fluid dynamics, that is, Euler equations and Navier-Stokes equations. As for a basic wave pattern to Euler equations, we consider the nonlinear stability of contact discontinuities to the Boltzmann equation. Even though the stability of the other two nonlinear waves, i.e., shocks and rarefaction waves has been extensively studied, there are few stability results on the contact discontinuity because unlike shock waves and rarefaction waves, its derivative has no definite sign, and decays slower than a rarefaction wave. Moreover, it behaves like a linear wave in a nonlinear setting so that its coupling with other nonlinear waves reveals a complicated interaction mechanism. Based on the new definition of contact waves to the Boltzmann equation corresponding to the contact discontinuities for the Euler equations, we succeed in obtaining the time asymptotic stability of this wave pattern with a convergence rate. In our analysis, an intrinsic dissipative mechanism associated with this profile is found and used for closing the energy estimates.     

Zero dissipation limit to strong contact discontinuity for the 1-D compressible Navier-Stokes equations

In this paper, we study the zero dissipation limit problem for the one-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations. We prove that if the solution of the inviscid Euler equations is piecewise constants with a contact discontinuity, then there exist smooth solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations which converge to the inviscid solution away from the contact discontinuity at a rate of as the heat-conductivity coefficient κ tends to zero, provided that the viscosity μ is of higher order than the heat-conductivity κ. Without loss of generality, we set μ≡0. Here we have no need to restrict the strength of the contact discontinuity to be small.     

Contact discontinuity with general perturbations for gas motions

The contact discontinuity is one of the basic wave patterns in gas motions. The stability of contact discontinuities with general perturbations for the Navier-Stokes equations and the Boltzmann equation is a long standing open problem. General perturbations of a contact discontinuity may generate diffusion waves which evolve and interact with the contact wave to cause analytic difficulties. In this paper, we succeed in obtaining the large time asymptotic stability of a contact wave pattern with a convergence rate for the Navier-Stokes equations and the Boltzmann equation in a uniform way. One of the key observations is that even though the energy norm of the deviation of the solution from the contact wave may grow at the rate , it can be compensated by the decay in the energy norm of the derivatives of the deviation which is of the order of . Thus, this reciprocal order of decay rates for the time evolution of the perturbation is essential to close the a priori estimate containing the uniform bounds of the L^∞ norm on the lower order estimate and then it gives the decay of the solution to the contact wave pattern.     

Asymptotic behavior toward the combination of contact discontinuity with rarefaction waves for 1-D compressible viscous gas with radiation

This paper is concerned with the large-time behavior toward the combination of two rarefaction waves and viscous contact wave for the Cauchy problem to a one-dimensional Navier–Stokes–Poisson coupled system, modeling the dynamics of a viscous gas in the presence of radiation. We show that the composite wave with small strength is asymptotically stable under partially large initial perturbations. The proofs are based on the more refined energy estimates to control the possible growth of the perturbations induced by two different waves and large data.     

Stability of supersonic contact discontinuity for two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows in a finite nozzle

In this paper, we study the stability of supersonic contact discontinuity for the two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows in a finitely long nozzle of varying cross-sections. We formulate the problem as an initial–boundary value problem with the contact discontinuity as a free boundary. To deal with the free boundary value problem, we employ the Lagrangian transformation to straighten the contact discontinuity and then the free boundary value problem becomes a fixed boundary value problem. We develop an iteration scheme and establish some novel estimates of solutions for the first order of hyperbolic equations on a cornered domain. Finally, by using the inverse Lagrangian transformation and under the assumption that the incoming flows and the nozzle walls are smooth perturbations of the background state, we prove that the original free boundary problem admits a unique weak solution which is a small perturbation of the background state and the solution consists of two smooth supersonic flows separated by a smooth contact discontinuity.     

Stability of a superposition of shock waves with contact discontinuities for systems of viscous conservation laws

In this paper, we show the large time asymptotic nonlinear stability of a superposition of viscous shock waves with viscous contact waves for systems of viscous conservation laws with small initial perturbations, provided that the strengths of these viscous waves are small with the same order. The results are obtained by elementary weighted energy estimates based on the underlying wave structure and a new estimate on the heat equation.     

Asymptotic stability of viscous contact wave for the one-dimensional compressible viscous gas with radiation

In this paper, we study the large-time behavior of solutions of the Cauchy problem to a one-dimensional Navier-Stokes-Poisson coupled system, modeling the dynamics of a viscous gas in the presence of radiation. When the far field states are suitably given, and the corresponding Riemann problem for the Euler system admits only a contact discontinuity wave solution with the far field states as Riemann initial data. Then, we can define a “viscous contact wave” for such a Navier-Stokes-Poisson coupled system. Based on elementary energy methods and ellipticity of the equation of the radiation flux, we can prove the “viscous contact wave” is stable provided the strength of the contact discontinuity wave and the perturbation of the initial data are suitably small.     

Solutions of the Cauchy problem for the 2-D Euler system with fan-shaped structure

We study the Cauchy problem for the isentropic 2-D Euler system with initial data having discontinuity on a smooth curve. A local existence of a solution is established, which consists of shock wave, rarefaction wave and contact discontinuity.     

Stability of contact discontinuities to 1-D piston problem for the compressible Euler equations

We consider 1-D piston problem for the compressible Euler equations when the piston is static relatively to the gas in the tube. By a modified wave front tracking method, we prove that a contact discontinuity is structurally stable under the assumptions that the total variation of the initial data and the perturbation of the piston velocity are both sufficiently small. Meanwhile, we study the asymptotic behavior of the solutions by the generalized characteristic method and approximate conservation law theory as $t\to +\infty$.     

A numerical method for the first-order wave equation with discontinuous initial data

We introduce a method, constructed such that numerical solutions of the wave equation are well behaved when the solutions also contain discontinuities. The wave equation serves as a model problem for the Euler equations when the solution contains a contact discontinuity. Numerical computations of linear equations and the Euler equations in one and two dimensions are presented. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 14: 353–365, 1998     

On the stability of contact discontinuity for Cauchy problem of compress Navier-Stokes equations with general initial data

In this paper,we study the stability of solutions of the Cauchy problem for 1-D compressible NarvierStokes equations with general initial data.The asymptotic limit of solution is found,under some conditions.The results in this paper imply the case that the limit function of solution as t →∞ is a viscous contact wave in the sense,which approximates the contact discontinuity on any finite-time interval as the heat conduction coefficients toward zero.As a by-product,the decay rates of the solution for the fast diffusion equations are also obtained.The proofs are based on the elementary energy method and the study of asymptotic behavior of the solution to the fast diffusion equation.     

Stability of the superposition of rarefaction wave and contact discontinuity for the non‐isentropic Navier–Stokes–Poisson system

This paper is devoted to the study of the nonlinear stability of the composite wave consisting of a rarefaction wave and a viscous contact discontinuity wave of the non‐isentropic Navier–Stokes–Poisson system with free boundary. We first construct the composite wave through the quasineutral Euler equations and then prove that the composite wave is time asymptotically stable under small perturbations for the corresponding initial‐boundary value problem of the non‐isentropic Navier–Stokes–Poisson system. Only the strength of the viscous contact wave is required to be small. However, the strength of the rarefaction wave can be arbitrarily large. In our analysis, the domain decomposition plays an important role in obtaining the zero‐order energy estimates. By introducing this technique, we successfully overcome the difficulty caused by the critical terms involved with the linear term, which does not satisfy the quasineural assumption for the composite wave. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Functional solutions of the problem of discontinuity disintegration

A definition is given of functional solutions of the problem of discontinuity disintegration, and an example of such a solution is presented for the isoentropic system of gas dynamics. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 280–288, February, 1998.     

Pointwise Stability of Contact Discontinuity for Viscous Conservation Laws with General Perturbations

The large time asymptotic behavior towards viscous contact waves for a class of systems of viscous conservation laws is studied in this paper for general initial perturbations. The high order deviation of the viscous solutions from the leading order ansatz is estimated pointwisely via the approximate Green function approach. The structural constraint on the left eigenvector belonging to the principal linearly degenerate family used in [13 Liu , T. , Xin , Z. ( 1988 ). Pointwise decay to contact discontinuities for systems of viscous conservation laws . Asian J. Math. 1 : 34 – 84 . [Google Scholar]] is removed so that our results hold, in particular, for the one-dimensional compressible Navier–Stokes equations of gas dynamics in both Lagrangian and Eulerian coordinates.     

Associate symmetries: A novel procedure for finding contact symmetries

A new method for finding contact symmetries is proposed for both ordinary and partial differential equations. Symmetries more general than Lie point are often difficult to find owing to an increased dependency of the infinitesimal functions on differential quantities. As a consequence, the invariant surface condition is often unable to be “split” into a reasonably sized set of determining equations, if at all. The problem of solving such a system of determining equations is here reduced to the problem of finding its own point symmetries and thus subsequent similarity solutions to these equations. These solutions will (in general) correspond to some subset of symmetries of the original differential equations. For this reason, we have termed such symmetries associate symmetries. We use this novel method of associate symmetries to determine new contact symmetries for a non-linear PDE and a second order ODE which could not previously be found using computer algebra packages; such symmetries for the latter are particularly difficult to find. We also consider a differential equation with known contact symmetries in order to illustrate that the associate symmetry procedure may, in some cases, be able to retrieve all such symmetries.     

The representation of the solution of Sturm-Liouville equation with discontinuity conditions

The aim of this paper is to construct the integral representation of the solution of Sturm-Liouville equation with eigenparameter-dependent discontinuity conditions at an interior point of the finite interval. Moreover, we examine the properties of the kernel function of this integral representation and obtain the partial differential equation provided by this kernel function.     

Multiple crack fatigue growth modeling by displacement discontinuity method with crack-tip elements

This paper presents a numerical approach for modeling multiple crack fatigue growth in a plane elastic infinite plate. It involves a generation of Bueckner’s principle, a displacement discontinuity method with crack-tip elements (a boundary element method) proposed recently by the author and an extension of Paris’ law to a multiple crack problem under mixed-mode loading. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general multiple crack growth problem can be solved in a single-region formulation. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary. Crack extension is conveniently modeled by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. Fatigue growth modeling of an inclined crack in an infinite plate under biaxial cyclic loads is taken into account to illustrate the effectiveness of the present numerical approach. As an example, the present numerical approach is used to study the fatigue growth of three parallel cracks with same length under uniaxial cyclic load. Many numerical results are given.     

On fillable contact structures up to homotopy

Let be a closed, oriented -manifold. The set of homotopy classes of positive, fillable contact structures on is a subtle invariant of , known to always be a finite set. In this paper we study under the assumption that carries metrics with positive scalar curvature. Using Seiberg-Witten gauge theory, we prove that two positive, fillable contact structures on are homotopic if and only if they are homotopic on the complement of a point. This implies that the cardinality of is bounded above by the order of the torsion subgroup of . Using explicit examples we show that without the geometric assumption on such a bound can be arbitrarily far from holding.

     

Solutions to the 2D Euler equations with velocity unbounded at infinity

We prove existence of solutions to the two-dimensional Euler equations with vorticity bounded and with velocity locally bounded but growing at infinity at a rate slower than a power of the logarithmic function. We place no integrability conditions on the initial vorticity. This result improves upon a result of Serfati which gives existence of a solution to the two-dimensional Euler equations with bounded velocity and vorticity.     

Global Stability of Multi-wave Configurations for the Compressible Non-isentropic Euler System

This paper is contributed to the structural stability of multi-wave configurations to Cauchy problem for the compressible non-isentropic Euler system with adiabatic exponent γ ∈ (1, 3]. Given some small BV perturbations of the initial state, the author employs a modified wave front tracking method, constructs a new Glimm functional, and proves its monotone decreasing based on the possible local wave interaction estimates, then establishes the global stability of the multi-wave configurations, onsisting of a strong 1-shock wave, a strong 2-contact discontinuity, and a strong 3-shock wave, without restrictions on their strengths.