Breakdown of classical solutions to quasilinear hyperbolic systems (Q5915369)

The authors consider the first-order quasilinear \(n\times n\) system \[ {\partial u \over\partial t} + A(u){\partial u \over\partial x}=0 \tag{1} \] which is strictly hyperbolic in a neighbourhood of \(u=0\), and study the asymptotic behavior of a life-span \(\widetilde T(\varepsilon)\) for a smooth solution \(u=u(t,x)\) to the Cauchy problem for the system (1) with an initial condition \[ u(0,x)=\varepsilon\psi(x). \] They prove that under suitable conditions on the input data \[ \lim_{\varepsilon\to 0+}\varepsilon^\beta\widetilde T(\varepsilon)=M_0 \] with some constants \(\beta\in {\mathbb{N}}\), \(M_0>0\) expressed explicitly in terms of input parameters. It is also shown that the solution \(u(t,x)\) remains bounded in the strip \(0<t<\widetilde T(\varepsilon)\), but the first-order derivatives tend to infinity as \(t\to \widetilde T(\varepsilon)\), and the singularity occurs on the envelope of characteristics of the same family. Some applications to the nonlinear vibrating string equation and to the system of one-dimensional gas dynamics are also given.