In connection with the recent proposal for possible singularity formation at the boundary for solutions of three-dimensional axisymmetric incompressible Euler’s equations (Luo and Hou, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (2014)), we study models for the dynamics at the boundary and show that they exhibit a finite-time blowup from smooth data.

Inspired by works of Castéras (Pac J Math 276:321–345, 2015), Li and Zhu (Calc Var Partial Differ Equ 58:1–18, 2019), Sun and Zhu (Calc Var Partial Differ Equ 60:1–26, 2021), we propose a heat flow for the mean field equation on a connected finite graph G=(V,E). Namely ∂_tϕ(u)=Δu−Q+ρ\frac{e^u}{∫_V e^u dμ} u(⋅,0)=u_0, where Δ is the standard graph Laplacian, ρ is a real number, Q:V→R is a function satisfying ∫_V Qdμ=ρ, and ϕ:R→R is one of certain smooth functions including ϕ(s)=es. We prove that for any initial data u_0 and any ρ∈R, there exists a unique solution u:V×[0,+∞)→R of the above heat flow; moreover, u(x, t) converges to some function u_∞:V→R uniformly in x∈V as t→+∞, and u_∞ is a solution of the mean field equation Δu_∞−Q+ρ\frac{e^{u_∞}}{∫_V e^{u_∞}dμ}=0. Though G is a finite graph, this result is still unexpected, even in the special case Q≡0. Our approach reads as follows: the short time existence of the heat flow follows from the ODE theory; various integral estimates give its long time existence; moreover we establish a Lojasiewicz–Simon type inequality and use it to conclude the convergence of the heat flow.

In the presence of vacuum, the physical entropy for polytropic gases behaves singularly and it is thus a challenge to study its dynamics. It is shown in this paper that the boundedness of the entropy can be propagated up to any finite time provided that the initial vacuum presents only at far fields with sufficiently slow decay of the initial density. More precisely, for the Cauchy problem of the onedimensional heat conductive compressible Navier--Stokes equations, the global well-posedness of strong solutions and uniform boundedness of the corresponding entropy are established, as long as the initial density vanishes only at far fields with a rate no more than $O(\frac{1}{x^2})$. The main tools of proving the uniform boundedness of the entropy are some singularly weighted energy estimates carefully designed for the heat conductive compressible Navier--Stokes equations and an elaborate De Giorgi type iteration technique for some classes of degenerate parabolic equations. The De Giorgi type iterations are carried out to different equations in establishing the lower and upper bounds of the entropy.

As V. I. Arnold observed in the 1960s, the Euler equations of incompressible fluid flow correspond formally to geodesic equations in a group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms. Working in an Eulerian framework, we study incompressible flows of shapes as critical paths for action (kinetic energy) along transport paths constrained to be shape densities (characteristic functions). The formal geodesic equations for this problem are Euler equations for incompressible, inviscid potential flow of fluid with zero pressure and surface tension on the free boundary. The problem of minimizing this action exhibits an instability associated with microdroplet formation, with the following outcomes: Any two shapes of equal volume can be approximately connected by an Euler spray---a countable superposition of ellipsoidal geodesics. The infimum of the action is the Wasserstein distance squared, and is almost never attained except in dimension 1. Every Wasserstein geodesic between bounded densities of compact support provides a solution of the (compressible) pressureless Euler system that is a weak limit of (incompressible) Euler sprays. Each such Wasserstein geodesic is also the unique minimizer of a relaxed least-action principle for a two-fluid mixture theory corresponding to incompressible fluid mixed with vacuum.

In this paper, we study the transonic shock problem for the full compressible Euler system in a general two-dimensional de Laval nozzle as proposed in Courant and Friedrichs (Supersonic flow and shock waves, Interscience, New York, 1948): given the appropriately large exit pressure pe(x), if the upstream flow is still supersonic behind the throat of the nozzle, then at a certain place in the diverging part of the nozzle, a shock front intervenes and the gas is compressed and slowed down to subsonic speed so that the position and the strength of the shock front are automatically adjusted such that the end pressure at the exit becomes pe(x). We solve this problem completely for a general class of de Laval nozzles whose divergent parts are small and arbitrary perturbations of divergent angular domains for the full steady compressible Euler system. The problem can be reduced to solve a nonlinear free boundary value problem for a mixed hyperbolic–elliptic system. One of the key ingredients in the analysis is to solve a nonlinear free boundary value problem in a weighted Hölder space with low regularities for a second order quasilinear elliptic equation with a free parameter (the position of the shock curve at one wall of the nozzle) and non-local terms involving the trace on the shock of the first order derivatives of the unknown function.