On a free-boundary problem for Burgers equation: The large-time behaviour (Q1386296)

The authors study the behaviour of the solution to the problem \[ \begin{aligned} &u_t = u_{xx} + u u_x \quad x\in \mathbb{R}\setminus \{\zeta (t)\}, \quad t>0,\\ &u(\zeta (t)^-,t) = u(\zeta (t)^+,t)=q,\quad u_x(\zeta (t)^-,t) - u_x(\zeta (t)^+,t)=1,\quad t>0,\\ &u(x,0)= u_0(x),\quad x\in \mathbb{R},\quad\zeta (0) = \zeta _0, \end{aligned} \tag{1} \] as \(t \to \infty \). They prove under certain assumptions on \(u_0\) and \(q\) (mainly \(q< u_0\leq A\in (\zeta _0, \infty )\)) that, if \(q > 2/A\), then (1) has a travelling-wave solution; if \(q < 2/A\) then the asymptotic behaviour is determined by two travelling waves with different velocities. More precisely, for \(x\leq \zeta (t)\) the solution \(u(x,t)\) converges to a travelling wave with speed \(c_-<0\), and for \(x> \zeta (t)\) the solution \(u(x,t)\) converges to a travelling wave with speed \(c_+\in (c_-, 0)\). In the last section of the paper the authors prove under more specific assumptions what happens in the case \(q= 2/A\).