English

A catalogue of singularities

Analysis of PDEs 2007-11-06 v1 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to classify finite-time singularities of PDEs. Most of the problems considered describe free-surface flows, which are easily observed experimentally. We consider problems where the singularity occurs at a point, and where typical scales of the solution shrink to zero as the singularity is approached. Upon a similarity transformation, exact self-similar behaviour is mapped to the fixed point of a {\it infinite dimensional dynamical system} representing the original dynamics. We show that the dynamics close to the fixed point is a useful way classifying the structure of the singularity. Specifically, we consider various types of stable and unstable fixed points, centre-manifold dynamics, limit cycles, and chaotic dynamics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0711.0442,
  title  = {A catalogue of singularities},
  author = {Jens Eggers and Marco A. Fontelos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.0442},
  year   = {2007}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:39:28.743Z