Well-posedness for two-dimensional steady supersonic Euler flows past a Lipschitz wedge

Abstract

For a supersonic Euler flow past a straight wedge whose vertex angle is less than the extreme angle, there exists a shock-front emanating from the wedge vertex, and the shock-front is usually strong especially when the vertex angle of the wedge is large. In this paper, we establish the $L^1$ well-posedness for two-dimensional steady supersonic Euler flows past a Lipschitz wedge whose boundary slope function has small total variation, when the total variation of the incoming flow is sufficiently small. In this case, the Lipschitz wedge perturbs the flow and the waves reflect after interacting with the strong shock-front or the wedge boundary. We first obtain the existence of solutions in $BV$ when the incoming flow has small total variation by the wave front tracking method and then study the $L^1$ stability of the solutions. In particular, we incorporate the nonlinear waves generated from the wedge boundary to develop a Lyapunov functional between two solutions, which is equivalent to the $L^1$ norm, and prove that the functional decreases in the flow direction. Then the $L^1$ stability is established, so is the uniqueness of the solutions by the wave front tracking method. Finally, we show the uniqueness of solutions in a broader class, i.e. the class of viscosity solutions.