Self-gravitating relativistic fluids: The formation of a free phase boundary in the phase transition from soft to hard (Q1815421)

A relativistic fluid model is studied to describe a flow with two phases: a soft phase, which holds when the density of mass-energy \(\rho\) is below a certain constant \(\rho_0\) and in which the sound of speed is zero, and a hard phase, which holds when \(\rho\) is above \(\rho_0\) and in which the sound speed is equal to the speed of light. The model is of relevance in the study of the gravitational collapse of degenerate cores of massive stars, the associated supernova explosions, and the formation of neutron stars and black holes. The soft phase corresponds to homogeneous nuclear matter at supranuclear densities. The constant \(\rho_0\) corresponds to the nuclear saturation density. In the case of the spherical symmetry the model reduces to one on a two-dimensional quotient space-time manifold. A unique existence theorem is proved to solve the problem of formation of a free phase boundary in the transition from soft to hard phase.