For unipolar hydrodynamic model of semiconductor device represented by Euler-Poisson equations, when the doping profile is supersonic, the existence of steady transonic shock solutions and C-smooth steady transonic solutions for Euler-Poisson Equations were established in [27] and [41], respectively. In this paper we further study the nonlinear structural stability and the linear dynamic instability of these steady transonic solutions. When the C^1-smooth transonic steady-states pass through the sonic line, they produce singularities for the system, and cause some essential difficulty in the proof of structural stability. For any relaxation time, by means of elaborate singularity analysis, we first investigate the structural stability of the C^1-smooth transonic steady-states, once the perturbations of the initial data and the doping profiles are small enough. Moreover, when the relaxation time is large enough, under the condition that the electric field is positive at the shock location, we prove that the transonic shock steady-states are structurally stable with respect to small perturbations of the supersonic doping profile. Furthermore, we show the linearly dynamic instability for these transonic shock steady-states provided that the electric field is suitable negative. The proofs for the structural stability results are based on singularity analysis, a monotonicity argument on the shock position and the downstream density, and the stability analysis of supersonic and subsonic solutions. The linear dynamic instability of the steady transonic shock for Euler-Poisson equations can be transformed to the ill-posedness of a free boundary problem for the Klein-Gordon equation. By using a nontrivial transformation and the shooting method, we prove that the linearized problem has a transonic shock solution with exponential growths. These results enrich and develop the existing studies.
We establish a variational inequality formulation that captures the transonic shock for a steady compressible potential flow. Its critical point satisfies the transonic equation; moreover the associated jump conditions across its free boundary match the usual Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions for a shock. By means of example we validate our formulation, and establish the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a transonic shock. Numerical results are also discussed.
We prove global in time dynamical stability of steady transonic shock solutions in divergent quasi-one-dimensional nozzles. We assume neither the smallness of the relative slope of the nozzle nor the weakness of the shock. Key ingredients of the proof are an exponentially decaying energy estimate for a linearized problem together with methods from \cite{LRXX}.
We establish the local uniqueness of steady transonic shock solutions with spherical symmetry for the three-dimensional full Euler equations. These transonic shock-fronts are important for understanding transonic shock phenomena in divergent nozzles. From mathematical point of view, we show the uniqueness of solutions of a free boundary problem for a multidimensional quasilinear system of mixed-composite elliptic--hyperbolic type. To this end, we develop a decomposition of the Euler system which works in a general Riemannian manifold, a method to study a Venttsel problem of nonclassical nonloc…
We show that for steady compressible potential flow in a class of straight divergent nozzles with arbitrary cross-section, if the flow is supersonic and spherically symmetric at the entry, and the given pressure (velocity) is appropriately large (small) and also spherically symmetric at the exit, then there exists uniquely one transonic shock in the nozzle. In addition, the shock-front and the supersonic flow ahead of it, as well as the subsonic flow behind of it, are all spherically symmetric. This is a global uniqueness result of free boundary problems of elliptic--hyperbolic mixed type equa…
For a two-dimensional steady supersonic Euler flow past a convex cornered wall with right angle, a characteristic discontinuity (vortex sheet and/or entropy wave) is generated, which separates the supersonic flow from the gas at rest (hence subsonic). We proved that such a transonic characteristic discontinuity is structurally stable under small perturbations of the upstream supersonic flow in $BV$. The existence of a weak entropy solution and Lipschitz continuous free boundary (i.e. characteristic discontinuity) is established. To achieve this, the problem is formulated as a free boundary pro…
Stability of steady transonic shocks with constant states in 3D rectangular nozzles under small external forces
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University（武汉大学数学与统计学院）；School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hubei Key Laboratory of Mathematics & Intelligent Computation and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Wuhan University of Technology（武汉科技大学数学与统计学院）
In this paper, both structural and dynamical stabilities of steady transonic shock solutions for one-dimensional Euler-Poission system are investigated. First, a steady transonic shock solution with supersonic backgroumd charge is shown to be structurally stable with respect to small perturbations of the background charge, provided that the electric field is positive at the shock location. Second, any steady transonic shock solution with the supersonic background charge is proved to be dynamically and exponentially stable with respect to small perturbation of the initial data, provided the ele…
This paper concerns with the existence of transonic shocks for steady Euler flows in a 3-D axisymmetric cylindrical nozzle, which are governed by the Euler equations with the slip boundary condition on the wall of the nozzle and a receiver pressure at the exit. Mathematically, it can be formulated as a free boundary problem with the shock front being the free boundary to be determined. In dealing with the free boundary problem, one of the key points is determining the position of the shock front. To this end, a free boundary problem for the linearized Euler system will be proposed, whose solut…
We study supersonic flow past a convex corner which is surrounded by quiescent gas. When the pressure of the upstream supersonic flow is larger than that of the quiescent gas, there appears a strong rarefaction wave to rarefy the supersonic gas. Meanwhile, a transonic characteristic discontinuity appears to separate the supersonic flow behind the rarefaction wave from the static gas. In this paper, we employ a wave front tracking method to establish structural stability of such a flow pattern under non-smooth perturbations of the upcoming supersonic flow. It is an initial-value/free-boundary p…
We consider the stability of transonic contact discontinuity for the two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows in a finitely long nozzle. This is the first work on the mixed-type problem of transonic flows across a contact discontinuity as a free boundary in nozzles. We start with the Euler-Lagrangian transformation to straighten the contact discontinuity in the new coordinates. However, the upper nozzle wall in the subsonic region depending on the mass flux becomes a free boundary after the transformation. Then we develop new ideas and techniques to solve the free-boundary problem in th…
This paper concerns the existence of transonic shock solutions to the 2-D steady compressible Euler system in an almost flat finite nozzle ( in the sense that it is a generic small perturbation of a flat one ), under physical boundary conditions proposed by Courant-Friedrichs in \cite{CourantFriedrichs1948}, in which the receiver pressure is prescribed at the exit of the nozzle. In the resulting free boundary problem, the location of the shock-front is one of the most desirable information one would like to determine. However, the location of the normal shock-front in a flat nozzle can be anyw…
We are concerned with the stability of multidimensional (M-D) transonic shocks in steady supersonic flow past multidimensional wedges. One of our motivations is that the global stability issue for the M-D case is much more sensitive than that for the 2-D case, which requires more careful rigorous mathematical analysis. In this paper, we develop a nonlinear approach and employ it to establish the stability of weak shock solutions containing a transonic shock-front for potential flow with respect to the M-D perturbation of the wedge boundary in appropriate function spaces. To achieve this, we fi…
We prove that for the two-dimensional steady complete compressible Euler system, with given uniform upcoming supersonic flows, the following three fundamental flow patterns (special solutions) in gas dynamics involving transonic shocks are all unique in the class of piecewise $C^1$ smooth functions, under appropriate conditions on the downstream subsonic flows: $(\rmnum{1})$ the normal transonic shocks in a straight duct with finite or infinite length, after fixing a point the shock-front passing through; $(\rmnum{2})$ the oblique transonic shocks attached to an infinite wedge; $(\rmnum{3})$ a…
This paper concerns the existence of transonic shocks for steady exothermically reacting Euler flows in an almost flat nozzle with the small rate of the exothermic reaction. One of the key points is to quantitatively determine the position of the shock front in the nozzle. We focus on the contributions of the perturbation of the flat nozzle and the exothermic reaction in determining the position of the shock front by comparing the orders of $σ$ and $κ$, where $σ$ represents the scale of the perturbation of the flat nozzle and $κ$ the rate of the exothermic reaction. To this end, a free boundar…
In this paper, we study the well-posedness/ill-posedness and regularity of stationary solutions to the hydrodynamic model of semiconductors represented by Euler-Poisson equations with sonic boundary. When the doping profile is subsonic, we prove that, the steady-state equations with sonic boundary possess a unique interior subsonic solution, and at least one interior supersonic solution, and if the relaxation time is large and the doping profile is a small perturbation of constant, then the equations admit infinitely many transonic shock solutions, while, if the relaxation time is small enough…
We develop a method that works in general product Riemannian manifold to decompose the three-dimensional steady full compressible Euler system, which is of elliptic-hyperbolic composite-mixed type for subsonic flows. The method is applied to show stability of spherically symmetric subsonic flows and transonic shocks in space $\mathbb{R}^3$ under multidimensional perturbations of boundary conditions.
Transonic shocks play a pivotal role in designation of supersonic inlets and ramjets. For the three-dimensional steady non-isentropic compressible Euler system with frictions, we had constructed a family of transonic shock solutions in rectilinear ducts with square cross-sections, and this paper is devoted to proving rigorously that almost all of these transonic shock solutions are stable, under multidimensional small perturbations of the upcoming supersonic flows and back pressures at the exits of ducts in suitable function spaces. This manifests that friction has a stabilization effect on tr…
We study the uniqueness of solutions with a transonic shock in a duct in a class of transonic shock solutions, which are not necessarily small perturbations of the background solution, for steady potential flow. We prove that, for given uniform supersonic upstream flow in a straight duct, there exists a unique uniform pressure at the exit of the duct such that a transonic shock solution exists in the duct, which is unique modulo translation. For any other given uniform pressure at the exit, there exists no transonic shock solution in the duct. This is equivalent to establishing a uniqueness th…
In this paper, we are concerned with the instability problem of a 3-D transonic oblique shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past an infinitely long sharp wedge. The flow is assumed to be isentropic and irrotational. It was indicated in pages 317 of [9] that if a steady supersonic flow comes from minus infinity and hits a sharp symmetric wedge, then it follows from the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions and the physical entropy condition that there possibly appear a weak shock or a strong shock attached at the edge of the sharp wedge, which corresponds to a supersonic shock or a transonic shock,…
In our previous work, we have established the existence of transonic characteristic discontinuities separating supersonic flows from a static gas in two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows under a perturbation with small total variation of the incoming supersonic flow over a solid right-wedge. It is a free boundary problem in Eulerian coordinates and, across the free boundary (characteristic discontinuity), the Euler equations are of elliptic-hyperbolic composite-mixed type. In this paper, we further prove that such a transonic characteristic discontinuity solution is unique and $L^1$-…
In this short note we present an instability result for transonic flows with respect to perturbations of the Mach number at infinity. More specifically we show that a perturbation of a transonic solution in the context of a Cauchy problem for the 2-dimensional steady, isentropic and irrotational Euler equations, which is a solution that solves an elliptic equation in certain parts of its domain and a hyperbolic equation in other parts, can only take place in the analytic category if the elliptic part of the domain is affected.
For an upstream supersonic flow past a straight-sided cone in $\R^3$ whose vertex angle is less than the critical angle, a transonic (supersonic-subsonic) shock-front attached to the cone vertex can be formed in the flow. In this paper we analyze the stability of transonic shock-fronts in three-dimensional steady potential flow past a perturbed cone. We establish that the self-similar transonic shock-front solution is conditionally stable in structure with respect to the conical perturbation of the cone boundary and the upstream flow in appropriate function spaces. In particular, it is proved …
In this paper we are concerned with the existence of transonic shocks for 2-D steady isothermal Euler flows in a horizontal flat nozzle under vertical gravity. In particular, we focus on the contribution of the vertical gravity in determining the position of the shock front. For steady horizontal flows, the existence of normal shocks with the position of the shock front being arbitrary in the nozzle can be easily established. This paper will try to determine the position of the shock front as the state of the flow at the entrance of the nozzle and the pressure at the exit are slightly perturbe…
For the stationary hydrodynamic model for semiconductors with sonic boundary, represented by Euler-Poisson equations, it possesses the various physical solutions including interior subsonic solutions/interior supersonic solutions/shock transonic solutions/$C^1$-smooth transonic solutions. However, the structural stability for these physical solutions is challenging and has remained open as we know. In this paper, we investigate the structural stability of interior subsonic solutions when the doping profiles are restricted in the subsonic region. The main result is proved by using the local (we…
We develop a new approach and employ it to establish the global existence and nonlinear structural stability of attached weak transonic shocks in steady potential flow past three-dimensional wedges; in particular, the restriction that the perturbation is away from the wedge edge in the previous results is removed. One of the key ingredients is to identify a "good" direction of the boundary operator of a boundary condition of the shock along the wedge edge, based on the non-obliqueness of the boundary condition for the weak shock on the edge. With the identification of this direction, an additi…
We establish the stability of 3-D axisymmetric transonic shock solutions of the steady full Euler system in divergent nozzles under small perturbations of an incoming radial supersonic flow and a constant pressure at the exit of the nozzles. To study 3-D axisymmetric transonic shock solutions of the full Euler system, we use a stream function formulation of the full Euler system for a 3-D axisymmetric flow. We resolve the singularity issue arising in stream function formulations of the full Euler system for a 3-D axisymmetric flow. We develop a new scheme to determine a shock location of a tra…
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 …
In this article, we prove the existence and regularity of a smooth solution for a supersonic-sonic patch arising in a modified Frankl problem in the study of three-dimensional axisymmetric steady isentropic relativistic transonic flows over a symmetric airfoil. We consider a general convex equation of state which makes this problem complicated as well as interesting in the context of the general theory for transonic flows. Such type of patches appear in many transonic flows over an airfoil and flow near the nozzle throat. Here the main difficulty is the coupling of nonhomogeneous terms due to …
We establish the existence of an axisymmetric weak solution to the steady Euler system with a transonic shock, nonzero vorticity, and nonzero swirl in a three-dimensional cylinder. When prescribing the supersonic solution in the upstream region by axisymmetric functions with variable entropy and variable angular momentum density(=swirl), we construct such a solution by using a Helmholtz decomposition of the velocity field and the method of iteration. An iteration scheme is developed using a delicate decomposition of the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions on the transonic shock via Helmholtz decomposi…
We establish existence, uniqueness and stability of transonic shocks for steady compressible non-isentropic potential flow system in a multidimensional divergent nozzle with an arbitrary smooth cross-section, for a prescribed exit pressure. The proof is based on solving a free boundary problem for a system of partial differential equations consisting of an elliptic equation and a transport equation. In the process, we obtain unique solvability for a class of transport equations with velocity fields of weak regularity(non-Lipschitz), an infinite dimensional weak implicit mapping theorem which d…
The existence, uniqueness, and asymptotic behavior of steady transonic flows past a curved wedge, involving transonic shocks, governed by the two-dimensional full Euler equations are established. The stability of both weak and strong transonic shocks under the perturbation of both the upstream supersonic flow and the wedge boundary is proved. The problem is formulated as a one-phase free boundary problem, in which the transonic shock is treated as a free boundary. The full Euler equations are decomposed into two algebraic equations and a first-order elliptic system of two equations in Lagrangi…
For the three-dimensional steady non-isentropic compressible Euler system with friction, we show existence of a class of symmetric subsonic, supersonic and transonic-shock solutions in a straight duct with constant square-section. Such flows are called Fanno flow in engineering. We formulate a boundary value problem for subsonic flows, and study their stability under multidimensional small perturbations of boundary conditions. Since the subsonic Euler system is of elliptic-hyperbolic composite-mixed type, this is achieved by using the framework established in [L. Liu; G. Xu; H. Yuan: Stability…
We establish the existence, stability, and asymptotic behavior of transonic flows with a transonic shock past a curved wedge for the steady full Euler equations in an important physical regime, which form a nonlinear system of mixed-composite hyperbolic-elliptic type. To achieve this, we first employ the coordinate transformation of Euler-Lagrange type and then exploit one of the new equations to identify a potential function in Lagrangian coordinates. By capturing the conservation properties of the Euler system, we derive a single second-order nonlinear elliptic equation for the potential fun…
In this paper, we investigate steady inviscid compressible flows with radial symmetry in an annulus. The major concerns are transonic flows with or without shocks. One of the main motivations is to elucidate the role played by the angular velocity in the structure of steady inviscid compressible flows. We give a complete classification of flow patterns in terms of boundary conditions at the inner and outer circle. Due to the nonzero angular velocity, many new flow patterns will appear. There exists accelerating or decelerating smooth transonic flows in an annulus satisfying one side boundary c…
Supersonic-sonic patches are ubiquitous in regions of transonic flows and they boil down to a family of degenerate hyperbolic problems in regions surrounded by a streamline, a characteristic curve and a possible sonic curve. This paper establishes the global existence of solutions in a whole supersonic-sonic patch characterized by the two-dimensional full system of steady Euler equations and studies solution behaviors near sonic curves, depending on the proper choice of boundary data extracted from the airfoil problem and related contexts. New characteristic decompositions are developed for th…
