GLOBAL SOLUTION TO THE PHYSICAL VACUUM PROBLEM OF COMPRESSIBLE EULER EQUATIONS WITH DAMPING AND GRAVITY

The global existence of smooth solutions to the physical vacuum free boundary problem of compressible Euler equations with damping and gravity is proved in space dimensions n = 1,2,3 for the initial data being small perturbations of the stationary solution. Moreover, the exponential decay of the velocity is obtained for n = 1,2,3. The exponentially fast convergence of the density and vacuum boundary to those of the stationary solution is shown for n = 1, and it is proved for n = 2,3 that they stay close to those of the stationary solution if they do so initially. The proof is based on the weighted estimates of both hyperbolic and parabolic types with weights capturing the singular behavior of higher-order normal derivatives near vacuum states, exploring the balance between the physical singularity which pushes the vacuum boundary outward and the effect of gravity which pulls it inward, and the dissipation of the frictional damping. The results obtained in this paper are the first ones on the global existence of solutions to the vacuum free boundary problems of inviscid compressible fluids with the nonexpanding background solutions. Exponentially fast convergence when the vacuum state is involved discovered in this paper is a new feature of the problem studied.