Supersonic flow of Chaplygin gas past a delta wing

Abstract

We consider the problem of supersonic flow of a Chaplygin gas past a delta wing with a shock or rarefaction wave attached to the leading edges. The flow under study is described by the three-dimensional steady Euler system. In conical coordinates, this problem can be reformulated as a boundary value problem for a nonlinear equation of mixed type. The type of this equation depends fully on the solutions of the problem itself, and thus it cannot be determined in advance. We overcome the difficulty by establishing a crucial Lipschitz estimate, and finally prove the unique existence of the solution via the method of continuity.