Room P4.35, Mathematics Building

André Lisibach, Princeton University
Shock Development in Spherical Symmetry

The general problem of shock formation in three space dimensions was solved by Christodoulou in 2007. In his work also a complete description of the maximal development of the initial data is provided. This description sets up the problem of continuing the solution beyond the point where the solution ceases to be regular.

This problem is called the shock development problem. It belongs to the category of free boundary problems but possesses the additional property of having singular initial data due to the behavior of the solution at the blowup surface. In my talk I will present the solution to this problem in the case of spherical symmetry. This is joint work with Demetrios Christodoulou.