skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Numerical study of non-uniqueness for 2D compressible isentropic Euler equations.
In this paper, we numerically study a class of solutions with spiraling singularities in vorticity for two-dimensional, inviscid, compressible Euler systems, where the initial data have an algebraic singularity in vorticity at the origin. These are different from the multi- dimensional Riemann problems widely studied in the literature. Our computations provide numerical evidence of the existence of initial value problems with multiple solutions, thus revealing a fundamental obstruction toward the well-posedness of the governing equations. The compressible Euler equations are solved using the positivity-preserving discontinuous Galerkin method.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2006884
PAR ID:
10339305
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of computational physics
Volume:
445
ISSN:
1090-2716
Page Range / eLocation ID:
110588
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. We prove that the time of classical existence of smooth solutions to the relativistic Euler equations can be bounded from below in terms of norms that measure the “(sound) wave-part” of the data in Sobolev space and “transport-part” in higher regularity Sobolev space and Hölder spaces. The solutions are allowed to have nontrivial vorticity and entropy. We use the geometric framework from [M. M. Disconzi and J. Speck, The relativistic Euler equations: Remarkable null structures and regularity properties, Ann. Henri Poincaré 20(7) (2019) 2173–2270], where the relativistic Euler flow is decomposed into a “wave-part”, that is, geometric wave equations for the velocity components, density and enthalpy, and a “transport-part”, that is, transport-div-curl systems for the vorticity and entropy gradient. Our main result is that the Sobolev norm [Formula: see text] of the variables in the “wave-part” and the Hölder norm [Formula: see text] of the variables in the “transport-part” can be controlled in terms of initial data for short times. We note that the Sobolev norm assumption [Formula: see text] is the optimal result for the variables in the “wave-part”. Compared to low-regularity results for quasilinear wave equations and the three-dimensional (3D) non-relativistic compressible Euler equations, the main new challenge of the paper is that when controlling the acoustic geometry and bounding the wave equation energies, we must deal with the difficulty that the vorticity and entropy gradient are four-dimensional space-time vectors satisfying a space-time div-curl-transport system, where the space-time div-curl part is not elliptic. Due to lack of ellipticity, one cannot immediately rely on the approach taken in [M. M. Disconzi and J. Speck, The relativistic Euler equations: Remarkable null structures and regularity properties, Ann. Henri Poincaré 20(7) (2019) 2173–2270] to control these terms. To overcome this difficulty, we show that the space-time div-curl systems imply elliptic div-curl-transport systems on constant-time hypersurfaces plus error terms that involve favorable differentiations and contractions with respect to the four-velocity. By using these structures, we are able to adequately control the vorticity and entropy gradient with the help of energy estimates for transport equations, elliptic estimates, Schauder estimates and Littlewood–Paley theory. 
    more » « less
  2. We are concerned with free boundary problems arising from the analysis of multidimensional transonic shock waves for the Euler equations in compressible fluid dynamics. In this expository paper, we survey some recent developments in the analysis of multidimensional transonic shock waves and corresponding free boundary problems for the compressible Euler equations and related nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) of mixed type. The nonlinear PDEs under our analysis include the steady Euler equations for potential flow, the steady full Euler equations, the unsteady Euler equations for potential flow, and related nonlinear PDEs of mixed elliptic–hyperbolic type. The transonic shock problems include the problem of steady transonic flow past solid wedges, the von Neumann problem for shock reflection–diffraction, and the Prandtl–Meyer problem for unsteady supersonic flow onto solid wedges. We first show how these longstanding multidimensional transonic shock problems can be formulated as free boundary problems for the compressible Euler equations and related nonlinear PDEs of mixed type. Then we present an effective nonlinear method and related ideas and techniques to solve these free boundary problems. The method, ideas, and techniques should be useful to analyze other longstanding and newly emerging free boundary problems for nonlinear PDEs. 
    more » « less
  3. Consider a one-dimensional simple small-amplitude solution (ϱ(bkg), v1(bkg)) to the isentropic compressible Euler equations which has smooth initial data, coincides with a constant state outside a compact set, and forms a shock in finite time. Viewing (ϱ(bkg), v1(bkg)) as a plane-symmetric solution to the full compressible Euler equations in three dimensions, we prove that the shock-formation mechanism for the solution (ϱ(bkg), v1(bkg)) is stable against all sufficiently small and compactly supported perturbations. In particular, these perturbations are allowed to break the symmetry and have nontrivial vorticity and variable entropy. Our approach reveals the full structure of the set of blowup-points at the first singular time: within the constant-time hypersurface of first blowup, the solution’s first-order Cartesian coordinate partial derivatives blow up precisely on the zero level set of a function that measures the inverse foliation density of a family of characteristic hypersurfaces. Moreover, relative to a set of geometric coordinates constructed out of an acoustic eikonal function, the fluid solution and the inverse foliation density function remain smooth up to the shock; the blowup of the solution’s Cartesian coordinate partial derivatives is caused by a degeneracy between the geometric and Cartesian coordinates, signified by the vanishing of the inverse foliation density (i.e., the intersection of the characteristics). 
    more » « less
  4. This paper proves that the motion of small-slope vorticity fronts in the two-dimensional incompressible Euler equations is approximated on cubically nonlinear timescales by a Burgers–Hilbert equation derived by Biello and Hunter (2010) using formal asymptotic expansions. The proof uses a modified energy method to show that the contour dynamics equations for vorticity fronts in the Euler equations and the Burgers–Hilbert equation are both approximated by the same cubically nonlinear asymptotic equation. The contour dynamics equations for Euler vorticity fronts are also derived. 
    more » « less
  5. In 1983, Antontsev, Kazhikhov, and Monakhov published a proof of the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the 3D Euler equations in which on certain inflow boundary components fluid is forced into the domain while on other outflow components fluid is drawn out of the domain. A key tool they used was the linearized Euler equations in vorticity form. We extend their result on the linearized problem to multiply connected domains and establish compatibility conditions on the initial data that allow higher regularity solutions. 
    more » « less