Department of Mathematics

It is well-known that in three space dimensions, smooth solutions to the equations describing a compressible gas can break down in finite time. One type of singularity which can arise is known as a “shock”, which is a hypersurface of discontinuity across which the integral forms of conservation of mass and momentum hold and through which there is nonzero mass flux. One can find approximate solutions to the equations of motion which describe expanding spherical shocks. We use these model solutions to construct global-in-time solutions to the irrotational compressible Euler equations with shocks. This is joint work with Igor Rodnianski.