On the implosion of a three dimensional compressible fluid

Abstract

We consider the compressible three dimensional Navier Stokes and Euler equations. In a suitable regime of barotropic laws, we construct a set of finite energy smooth initial data for which the corresponding solutions to both equations implode (with infinite density) at a later time at a point, and completely describe the associated formation of singularity. Two essential steps of the analysis are the existence of $\mathcal C^\infty$ smooth self-similar solutions to the compressible Euler equations for quantized values of the speed and the derivation of spectral gap estimates for the associated linearized flow which are addressed in the companion papers \cite{MRRSprofile, MRRSdefoc}. All blow up dynamics obtained for the Navier-Stokes problem are of type II (non self-similar).