Structure and bifurcations of plane shock waves in a vibrationally excited gas with an external pumping source

Abstract

The structure of the density profiles in stationary plane shock waves in a vibrationally excited gas is investigated. For self-similar solutions a bifurcation diagram is plotted in the parametric “traveling wave velocity—degree of nonequilibrium” plane. The bifurcation boundaries of the domains of existence of the structures of different types are analytically derived. It is shown that weak plane shock waves are unstable, accelerate, and break down into a sequence of pulses or-at a fairly high pumping rate-waves with nonzero asymptotics, whose amplitude and propagation velocity are independent of the initial disturbance and are determined by the parameters of the medium itself.