Formation of Singularities in Relativistic Fluid Dynamics and in Spherically Symmetric Plas.pdfVIP

Formation of Singularities in Relativistic Fluid Dynamics and in Spherically Symmetric Plasma Dynamics Yan Guo A Shadi TahvildarZadeh  Brown University Princeton University June  Supp orted in part by the National Science Foundation grants DMS and DMS Abstract It is shown that for a large class of smo oth initial data singularities will develop e in nite time in the relativistic Euler equations for compressible uids and in the EulerMaxwell system for plasma dynamics Intro duction Quasilinear hyp erb olic systems have a sp ecial place in the theory of partial dierential equa tions since most of the PDEs arising in continuum physics are of this form Wellknown examples are the Euler equations for a p erfect compressible uid the equations of elasto dynamics for a p erfect elastic solid and equations describing a variety of eldmatter inter actions such as magnetohydro dynamics etc It is wellknown that for all these systems the Cauchy problem is wellp osed ie it has a unique classical solution in a small neighb orho o d in spacetime of the hyp ersurface on which the initial data are given On the other hand it is not exp ected that these systems will have a globalintime regular solution b ecause sho ck discontinuities are exp ected to form at some p oint at least as long as the initial data are not very small In more than one space dimension there are no general theorems to that eect however mainly b ecause in higher dimensions the metho d of characteristics which is a p owerful to ol in one dimension for the study of hyp erb olic systems b ecomes intractable In T C Sideri