Free Boundary Value Problem for the One-Dimensional Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations with Density-Dependent Viscosity and Discontinuous Initial Data

Abstract

We study the free boundary value problem for one-dimensional isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations with density-dependent viscosity coefficient and discontinuous initial data in this paper. For piecewise regular initial density, we show that there exists a unique global piecewise regular solution, the interface separating the flow and vacuum state propagates along particle path and expands outwards at an algebraic time-rate, the flow density is strictly positive from blow for any finite time and decays pointwise to zero at an algebraic time-rate, and the jump discontinuity of density also decays at an algebraic time-rate as the time tends to infinity.