Breakdown of smoothness for the Muskat problem (Q2435000)

The authors study the Muskat equation, which desribes the evolution of the interface separating two incompressible fluids in a porous medium. They show the existence of a solution, defined for \(t \in [t_0, t_2]\), with the following properties: ``A. At time \(t_0\), the interface is a graph of a function. B. At some time \(t_1 \in (t_0, t_2)\), the interface is no longer a graph. C. For each time \(t \in [t_0, t_2)\), the interface is real analytic. D. At time \(t_2\), the interface is \(C^3\) smooth but not \(C^4\) smooth.'' (From the introduction) In order to prove the main result, the authors construct Muskat solutions analytic on a specially chosen domain \(\Omega(t) = \{|\Im x| < h(\Re x, t) \}\). A small perturbation of the real-analytic ``turnover'' solution, constructed in [\textit{A. Castro} et al., Ann. Math. (2) 175, No. 2, 909--948 (2012; Zbl 1267.76033)], is taken as the initial datum.