Weak Shock Propagation with Accretion. II. Stability of Self-similar Solutions to Radial Perturbations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Coughlin et al. derived and analyzed a new regime of self-similarity that describes weak shocks (Mach number of order unity) in the gravitational field of a point mass. These solutions are relevant to low-energy explosions, including failed supernovae. In this paper, we develop a formalism for analyzing the stability of shocks to radial perturbations, and we demonstrate that the self-similar solutions of Paper I are extremely weakly unstable to such radial perturbations. Specifically, we show that perturbations to the shock velocity and post-shock fluid quantities (the velocity, density, and pressure) grow with time as t α ; interestingly, we find that α ≲ 0.12, implying that the 10-folding timescale of such perturbations is roughly 10 orders of magnitude in time. We confirm these predictions by performing high-resolution, time-dependent numerical simulations. Using the same formalism, we also show that the Sedov–Taylor blast wave is trivially stable to radial perturbations provided that the self-similar, Sedov–Taylor solutions extend to the origin, and we derive simple expressions for the perturbations to the post-shock velocity, density, and pressure. Finally, we show that there is a third, self-similar solution (in addition to the solutions in Paper I and the Sedov–Taylor solution) to the fluid equations that describes a rarefaction wave, i.e., an outward-propagating sound wave. We interpret the stability of shock propagation in light of these three distinct self-similar solutions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".