English

Classical Euler flows generate the strong Guderley imploding shock wave

Analysis of PDEs 2025-11-10 v2 Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We prove that Guderley's self-similar imploding shock solution for the compressible Euler equations with ideal--gas law (γ>1\gamma>1) arises from classical, radially symmetric, shock--free data. For such data prescribed at initial time Tin<0\mathrm{T_{in}} < 0, we prove that the flow remains smooth up to a first singular time t=T(Tin,0)t=\mathrm{T}_* \in (\mathrm{T_{in}}, 0), where a preshock forms with a C1/3C^{1/3} cusp in the fast acoustic variable. From this preshock a unique, initially weak, regular shock is born, whose strength can be made arbitrarily large on a controlled time interval; the front then deforms onto the Guderley shock and implodes at the origin at the collapse time t=0t=0. There exists a matching time t=Tfin(T,0)t=\mathrm{T_{fin}} \in (\mathrm{T}_*,0) such that on [Tfin,0)[\mathrm{T_{fin}},0) the solution coincides exactly with the classical Guderley self--similar profile, and at t=Tfint=\mathrm{T_{fin}} the shock trajectory matches the self--similar front to all orders. As t0t \to 0^-, the Euler solution implodes at the center, and continues for t>0t>0 as a reflected blast wave, providing a global-in-time unique Euler solution which evolves from regular initial conditions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.19688,
  title  = {Classical Euler flows generate the strong Guderley imploding shock wave},
  author = {Giorgio Cialdea and Steve Shkoller and Vlad Vicol},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.19688},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

76 pages, 7 figures, minor typos corrected

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:59:58.733Z