Asymptotics of the 1D compressible Navier-Stokes equations with density-dependent viscosity

We are concerned with the time-asymptotic behavior toward rarefaction waves for strong non-vacuum solutions to the Cauchy problem of the one-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations with degenerate density-dependent viscosity. The case when the pressure p(rho) = rho(gamma) and the viscosity coefficient mu(rho) = rho(alpha) for some parameters alpha, gamma is an element of R is considered. For alpha >= 0, gamma >= max{1, alpha}, if the initial data is assumed to be sufficiently regular, without vacuum and mass concentrations, we show that the Cauchy problem of the one-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations admits a unique global strong non-vacuum solution, which tends to the rarefaction waves as time goes to infinity. Here both the initial perturbation and the strength of the rarefaction waves can be arbitrarily large. The proof is established via a delicate energy method and the key ingredient in our analysis is to derive the uniform-in-time positive lower and upper bounds on the specific volume. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.