Global existence and non-relativistic global limits of entropy solutions to the 1D piston problem for the isentropic relativistic Euler equations

We study the 1D piston problem for the isentropic relativistic Euler equations when the total variations of the initial data and the speed of the piston are sufficiently small. Employing a modified Glimm scheme, we establish the global existence of shock front solutions including a strong shock without restriction on the strength. In particular, we give some uniform estimates on the perturbation waves, the reflections of the perturbation waves on the piston and the strong shock. Meanwhile, we consider the convergence of the entropy solutions as the light speed c -> +infinity to the corresponding entropy solutions of the classical non-relativistic isentropic Euler equations. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4792474]