Free boundary value problem for the radial symmetric compressible isentropic Navier-Stokes equations with density-dependent viscosity

TL;DR

This paper proves the global existence and algebraic expansion rate of solutions for a radially symmetric compressible Navier-Stokes system with density-dependent viscosity, extending previous results to the critical case where eta=1.

Contribution

It establishes the global existence of strong solutions in two dimensions for the critical density-dependent viscosity case, improving upon prior work that required eta>1.

Findings

Global strong solutions exist for large initial data in 2D.

The free boundary expands at an algebraic rate.

The results extend previous work to the critical case eta=1.

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of free-boundary-value problem of the compressible Naiver-Stokes system with density-dependent viscosities $\mu=const>0,\lambda=\rho^\beta$ which was first introduced by Vaigant-Kazhikhov \cite{1995 Vaigant-Kazhikhov-SMJ} in 1995. By assuming the endpoint case $\beta=1$ in the radially spherical symmetric setting, we prove the (a priori) expanding rate of the free boundary is algebraic for multi-dimensional flow, and particularly establish the global existence of strong solution of the two-dimensional system for any large initial data. This also improves the previous work of Li-Zhang \cite{2016 Li-Zhang-JDE} where they proved the similar result for $\beta>1$. The main ingredients of this article is making full use of the geometric advantange of domain as well as the critical space dimension two.