STABILITY OF RAREFACTION WAVES AND VACUUM STATES FOR THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL EULER EQUATIONS

We are interested in properties of the multidimensional Euler equations for compressible fluids. Rarefaction waves are the unique solutions that may contain vacuum states in later time, in the context of one-dimensional Riemann problem, even when the Riemann initial data are away from the vacuum. For the multidimensional Euler equations describing isentropic or adiabatic fluids, we prove that plane rarefaction waves and vacuum states are stable within a large class of entropy solutions that may contain vacuum states. Rarefaction waves and vacuum states are also shown to be global attractors of entropy solutions in L∞, provided initial data are L∞ ∩ L1 perturbations of Riemann initial data. Our analysis applies to entropy solutions with arbitrarily large oscillation, and no bounded variation regularity is required.