
where is the distance from the catastrophe point in the most singular direction. Admissible values of the rank r1and the
dimensions dim Γr1of the corresponding subspaces in Γ are calculated for generic functions f(u), i.e. for generic initial
data u(x,0). For instance, for dimension n= 3, the admissible ranks r1are r1= 2,1 and correspondingly dim Γr1=2 = 3
and dim Γr1=1 = 0, while for n= 8, one has r1= 7,6,5 and dim Γr1= 8,5,0. On the other side, in the particular case of
potential flows, dim Γr1assumes others values. This case is analysed in the paper too.
It is shown that in the generic case the hierarchy of blow-ups has n+ 1 levels. On the m-th level there are also the
subsections of smaller dimensions where superpositions of derivatives are bounded while the blowing-up derivatives behave
as ∂uk
∂xi∼−m/(m+1) , →0.(1.5)
So, the most singular behavior of derivatives for HEE in the generic case is given by
∂uk
∂xi∼−(n+1)/(n+2) , →0.(1.6)
Non-generic and Poincar´e cases for initial data are discussed too. Characteristic features of blow-ups of derivatives for
the two- and three-dimensional HEE are considered in details. Some concrete cases are analyzed. The results presented
in this paper confirm an expected great difference between the properties of the one-dimensional and multi-dimensional
homogeneous Euler equations.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 blow-ups of derivatives of the first level are analyzed. Admissible
ranks of the matrix M(t, u) and corresponding dim Γr1are calculated in Section 3. Non-generic and Poincar´e cases are
considered in Section 4. The situation with potential motion is discussed in section 5. Blow-ups of higher level and
hierarchy are described in Section 6 for the maximal rank case and in Section 7 for the lower rank case. Two-dimensional
and three-dimensional cases are described in Sections 8 and 9, respectively. An explicit 2D example has been carried out
in Section 10.
2 Generic blow-ups of derivatives: first level
The hodograph equations (1.2) will be our basic tool in the study of blow-ups of derivatives and gradient catastrophes for
the HEE (1.1).
Differentiating (1.2) with respect to xk, one obtains [6, 11, 10]
n
X
l=1
Mil
∂ul
∂xk
=δik ,with Mil =tδil +∂fi
∂ul
, i, k, l = 1,...,n, (2.1)
where δik is the Kronecker symbol. This relation implies that the derivatives ∂ul
∂xkand also ∂ul
∂t become unbounded at the
hypersurface Γ defined by the equation
det(M(t, u)) = 0 .(2.2)
The degeneracy of the matrix Mis the central point in the analysis of blow-ups. General properties of the hypersurface
(2.2) and some of their implications have been discussed in [10].
For deeper study of blow-ups one needs to consider the infinitesimal version of the hodograph mapping (1.2) around a
point u0on the blow-up hypersurface Γ (2.2) at fixed time t, i.e. with the expansion
δxi=tδui+X
k
∂fi
∂uk
(u0)δuk+1
2X
k,l
∂2fi
∂uk∂ul
(u0)δukδul+1
6X
k,l,m
∂3fi
∂uk∂ul∂um
(u0)δukδulδum+. . .
=X
k
Mik(u0)δuk+1
2X
k,l
∂2fi
∂uk∂ul
(u0)δukδul+1
6X
k,l,m
∂3fi
∂uk∂ul∂um
(u0)δukδulδum+. . . , I = 1,...,n.
(2.3)
For variable tone has the expansions (2.3) with the substitution δx→δ(x−u0t) in the l.h.s. after the subtraction of
the contribution from the infinitesimal Galilean transformation.
An important feature of the multi-dimensional case is the invariance of HEE (1.1) under the group SO(n) of rotations
in Rn. It is easy to see that in order to ensure that the variables (u1,...,un) are the component of the n-dimensional
vector uit is sufficient to require that the functions f(u) = (f1(u),...,fn(u)) in (1.2) are transformed as the component
of a vector. In such a case Mik are components of a tensor and the hodograph equations (1.2), condition (2.2) and (2.3)
are invariant to the group of rotations SO(n) too. Consequently, it would be preferable to formulate the basic properties
of blow-ups in a covariant form.
Another important peculiarity of the multi-dimensional HEE is that the terms linear in δudo not disappear in the
expansion (2.3) in contrast to the one-dimensional case. The coefficients Mik(u0) do not vanish on Γ, however they are
very special. They are elements of the degenerate n×nmatrix M, which is a key element for the subsequent analysis.
2