Stability of the planar rarefaction wave to two-dimensional Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations of compressible fluids

This study is concerned with the large time behavior of the two-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations, which are used to model compressible fluids with internal capillarity. Based on the fact that the rarefaction wave, one of the basic wave patterns to the hyperbolic conservation laws is nonlinearly stable to the one-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations, the planar rarefaction wave to the two-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes-Korteweg equations is first derived. Then, it is shown that the planar rarefaction wave is asymptotically stable in the case that the initial data are suitably small perturbations of the planar rarefaction wave. The proof is based on the delicate energy method. This is the first stability result of the planar rarefaction wave to the multi-dimensional viscous fluids with internal capillarity.