Global Weak Solutions to One-Dimensional Non-Conservative Viscous Compressible Two-Phase System

In this paper, we deal with global weak solutions of a non-conservative viscous compressible two-phase model in one space dimension. This work extends in some sense the previous work, [Bresch et al., Arch Rat Mech Anal 196:599–629, 2010], which provides the global existence of weak solutions in the multi-dimensional framework with 1 < γ± < 6 assuming non-zero surface tension. In our study, we strongly improve the results by taking advantage of the one space dimension. More precisely, we obtain global existence of weak solutions without using capillarity terms and for pressure laws with the same range of coefficients as the degenerate barotropic mono-fluid system, namely γ± > 1. Then we prove that any possible vacuum state has to vanish within finite time after which densities are always away from vacuum. This allows to prove that at least one phase corresponding to the global weak solution is a locally in time and space (in a sense to be defined) strong solution after the vacuum states vanish. Our paper may be understood as a non-straightforward generalization to the two-phase flow system of a previous paper [Li et al., Commun Math Phys 281(2):401–444, 2008], which treated the usual compressible barotropic Navier-Stokes equations for mono-fluid with a degenerate viscosity. Various important mathematical difficulties occur when we want to generalize those results to the two-phase flows system since the corresponding model is non-conservative. Far from vacuum, it involves a strong coupling between a nonlinear algebraic system and a degenerate PDE system under constraint linked to fractions. Moreover, fractional densities may vanish if densities or fractions vanish: A difficulty is to find estimates on the densities from estimates on fractional densities using the algebraic system. Original approximate systems have also to be introduced compared to the works on the degenerate barotropic mono-fluid system. Note that even if our result concerns “only” the one-dimensional case, it points out possible global weak solutions (for such a non-conservative system) candidates to approach for instance shock structures and to define an appropriate a priori family of paths in the phase space (in numerical schemes) at the zero dissipation limit.