Nonlinear generalized functions and jump conditions for a standard one pressure liquid–gas model

The mixture of a liquid and a gas is classically represented by one pressure models. These models are a system of PDEs in nonconservative form and shock wave solutions do not make sense within the theory of distributions: they give rise to products of distributions that are not defined within distribution theory. But they make sense by applying a theory of nonlinear generalized functions to these equations. In contrast to the familiar case of conservative systems the jump conditions cannot be calculated a priori. Jump conditions for these nonconservative systems can be obtained using the theory of nonlinear generalized functions by inserting some adequate physical information into the equations. The physical information that we propose to insert for the one pressure models of a mixture of a liquid and a gas is a natural mathematical expression in the theory of nonlinear generalized functions of the fact that liquids are practically incompressible while gases are very compressible, and so they do not satisfy equally well their respective state laws on the shock waves. This modelization gives well defined explicit jump conditions. The great numerical difficulty for solving numerically nonconservative systems is due to the fact that slightly different numerical schemes can give significantly different results. The jump conditions obtained above permit to select the numerical schemes and validate those that give numerical solutions that satisfy these jump conditions, which can be an important piece of information in the absence of other explicit discontinuous solutions and of precise observational results. We expose with care the mathematical originality of the theory of nonlinear generalized functions (an original abstract analysis issued by the Leopoldo Nachbin team on infinite dimensional holomorphy) that permits to state mathematically physical facts that cannot be formulated within distribution theory, and are the key for the removal of “ambiguities” that classically appear when one tries to calculate on “multiplications of distributions” that occur in the differential equations of physics.