Well-Posedness of the Free-Boundary Compressible 3-D Euler Equations with Surface Tension and the Zero Surface Tension Limit

We prove that the 3-D compressible Euler equations with surface tension along the moving free-boundary are well-posed. Specifically, we consider isentropic dynamics and consider an equation of state, modeling a liquid, given by Courant and Friedrichs [8] as p(ρ) = αρ − β for consants γ > 1 and α, β > 0. The analysis is made difficult by two competing nonlinearities associated with the potential energy: compression in the bulk, and surface area dynamics on the free-boundary. Unlike the analysis of the incompressible Euler equations, wherein boundary regularity controls regularity in the interior, the compressible Euler equation require the additional analysis of nonlinear wave equations generating sound waves. An existence theory is developed by a specially chosen parabolic regularization together with the vanishing viscosity method. The artificial parabolic term is chosen so as to be asymptotically consistent with the Euler equations in the limit of zero viscosity. Having solutions for the positive surface tension problem, we proceed to obtain a priori estimates which are independent of the surface tension parameter. This requires choosing initial data which satisfy the Taylor sign condition. By passing to the limit of zero surface tension, we prove the well-posedness of the compressible Euler system without surface on the free-boundary, and without derivative loss.