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 hyperbo
lic-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 function in the subsonic region so that the transonic shock problem is reformulated as a one-phase free boundary problem for a second-order nonlinear elliptic equation with the shock-front as a free boundary. One of the advantages of this approach is that, given the shock location or quivalently the entropy function along the shock-front downstream, all the physical variables can expressed as functions of the gradient of the potential function, and the downstream asymptotic behavior of the potential function at the infinite exit can be uniquely determined with uniform decay rate. To solve the free boundary problem, we employ the hodograph transformation to transfer the free boundary to a fixed boundary, while keeping the ellipticity of the second-order equations, and then update the entropy function to prove that it has a fixed point. Another advantage in our analysis here is in the context of the real full Euler equations so that the solutions do not necessarily obey Bernoullis law with a uniform Bernoulli constant, that is, the Bernoulli constant is allowed to change for different fluid trajectories.
We give a new proof for the local existence of a smooth isometric embedding of a smooth $3$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with nonzero Riemannian curvature tensor into $6$-dimensional Euclidean space. Our proof avoids the sophisticated arguments vi
a microlocal analysis used in earlier proofs. In Part 1, we introduce a new type of system of partial differential equations, which is not one of the standard types (elliptic, hyperbolic, parabolic) but satisfies a property called strong symmetric positivity. Such a PDE system is a generalization of and has properties similar to a system of ordinary differential equations with a regular singular point. A local existence theorem is then established by using a novel local-to-global-to-local approach. In Part 2, we apply this theorem to prove the local existence result for isometric embeddings.
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 that the slope of the shock-front tends asymptotically to the slope of the unperturbed self-similar shock-front downstream at infinity.
When a plane shock hits a wedge head on, it experiences a reflection-diffraction process and then a self-similar reflected shock moves outward as the original shock moves forward in time. Experimental, computational, and asymptotic analysis has shown
that various patterns of shock reflection may occur, including regular and Mach reflection. However, most of the fundamental issues for shock reflection have not been understood, including the global structure, stability, and transition of the different patterns of shock reflection. Therefore, it is essential to establish the global existence and structural stability of solutions of shock reflection in order to understand fully the phenomena of shock reflection. On the other hand, there has been no rigorous mathematical result on the global existence and structural stability of shock reflection, including the case of potential flow which is widely used in aerodynamics. Such problems involve several challenging difficulties in the analysis of nonlinear partial differential equations such as mixed equations of elliptic-hyperbolic type, free boundary problems, and corner singularity where an elliptic degenerate curve meets a free boundary. In this paper we develop a rigorous mathematical approach to overcome these difficulties involved and establish a global theory of existence and stability for shock reflection by large-angle wedges for potential flow. The techniques and ideas developed here will be useful for other nonlinear problems involving similar difficulties.
