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coulombel

STABILITY OF COMPRESSIBLE VORTEX SHEETS

J.-F. COULOMBEL UMPA, ENS LYON, 46 alle dItalie, e 69364 LYON CEDEX 07, FRANCE E-mail: jfcoulom@umpa.ens-lyon.fr P. SECCHI Dipartimento di Matematica, Facolt` di Ingegneria, a Via Valotti 9, 25123 BRESCIA, ITALY E-mail: paolo.secchi@ing.unibs.it

We give some stability results on vortex sheets solutions to the two-dimensional compressible Euler equations. The linearized problem is shown to obey an energy estimate with loss of one derivative.

We are concerned with the Euler equations for a compressible uid in R2 : t + t (u) + (u) = 0 , (u u) + p = 0,

where the pressure law p is smooth, and satises p () > 0. This system admits particular solutions that are rectilinear contact discontinuities (they are also vortex sheets). Up to Galilean transformations, these solutions can be written as follows: (, u) = (, v, 0) if x2 > 0, (, v, 0) if x2 < 0,

where we have decomposed the velocity u R2 as u = (v, u). An open and challenging problem is to construct (local in time) vortex sheets, that is, contact discontinuities that depend on (t, x1 , x2 ), and that are close to a rectilinear vortex sheet. This is a nonlinear stability problem. This is also
This

work was supported by the EU nanced network HYKE, HPRN-CT-2002-00282. 502

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a free boundary problem, since the hypersurface {x2 = (t, x1 )} on either side of which the ow is regular is unknown. Moreover, this hypersurface is characteristic with respect to both left and right states, since the RankineHugoniot conditions prescribe the following jump relations: t + v x1 u = 0 , + = . t + v + x1 u + = 0 ,

It has been known for a very long time (see e.g. 3 ) that a vortex sheet, as dened above, is weakly stable if, and only if |v| 2 c , c := p () . analIn the case |v| < 2 c, violent instability occurs (the situation is ogous to the incompressible case). Here, we study the case |v| > 2 c, and describe the results obtained in 1 . As already mentioned, this case corresponds to a weak stability regime, that is, the constant coecients linearized problem satises Lopatinskiis condition, but not in a uniform way. More precisely, the so-called Lopatinskii determinant (that depends on a complex frequency number of nonnegative real part, and a real wave number ) vanishes at some points for which is purely imaginary. This Lopatinskii determinant is jointly analytic with respect to (, ) near its zeros, and the zeros have multiplicity 1. Then it is possible to construct a degenerate symbolic symmetrizer, that takes into account the zeros of the Lopatinskii determinant. (The construction closely follows the analysis of 2 ). The estimate resulting from this construction exhibits a loss of one derivative from the source terms to the solution (both in the interior domain and on the boundary). In the variable coecients case, the derivation of an energy estimate is far more dicult. As a matter of fact, special attention must be paid to the way one straightens the unknown interface. The key point is to choose a function (t, x1 , x2 ) that satises x2 > 0, (t, x1 , 0) = (t, x1 ), and t + v x1 u = 0 , in the whole time-space domain R R2 . Then one introduces the change of variables (t, x1 , x2 ) (t, x1 , (t, x1 , x2 )) , that maps the hyperplane {x2 = 0} onto the unknown interface. Using such a function to straighten the front, one obtains (in the new variables)

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a quasilinear hyperbolic problem with a characteristic boundary, and a boundary matrix of constant rank. This property of constant rank is known to be crucial when one wants to construct Kreiss type symmetrizers (see 2 ). With our choice of , we are thus able to construct variable coecients symmetrizers for the uniformly stable frequencies (that is, for the frequencies that meet Lopatinskiis condition). The frequencies for which Lopatinskiis condition fails correspond to the singularities of the solution on the boundary of the space domain (this is the region where one loses the microlocal control of the solution). In 1 , we show that these singularities propagate in the interior of the space domain along bicharacteristic curves (associated with the two incoming modes). Thus, we are able to control the solution away from those two curves. To prove an energy estimate, we need to patch the estimates that stem from the symmetrizers construction, and the estimates near the singularities (the bicharacteristic curves associated with the incoming modes). Consequently, we introduce microlocalizations (or cut-o functions) and commute the linearized equation with microlocalization operators. This yields some errors, but another key point of the analysis is that those errors are microlocalized far from the singularities. We can thus absorb these error terms thanks to our energy estimates. Eventually, we prove an energy estimate for the variable coecients linearized problem in which we lose one derivative from the source terms to the solution. The analysis is rather long, due to the fact that the boundary is characteristic. A major part of the work in 1 consists in eliminating the components on the kernel of the boundary matrix, and in obtaining a noncharacteristic problem. For this, we make an extensive use of paradierential calculus. The reader is referred to 1 for the details and a precise statement of the results. References
1. J.-F. Coulombel and P. Secchi. The stability of compressible vortex sheets in two space dimensions. Preprint, 2003. 2. A. Majda and S. Osher. Initial-boundary value problems for hyperbolic equations with uniformly characteristic boundary. Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 28(5):607675, 1975. 3. J. W. Miles. On the disturbed motion of a plane vortex sheet. J. Fluid Mech., 4:538552, 1958.