Fay shock-layer asymptotics 2026-10-14
For and , the Fay solution becomes . The partial-fraction identity for the hyperbolic tangent sums this to the displayed smooth shock layer. It resolves the odd transition from to on angular thickness ; at both sides vanish and the comparison is read through their derivatives.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 82 4 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put . For the Fay solution, . At the first harmonic therefore giveswhich agrees with the late-time limit in (i).
For the opposite limit, expand the reciprocal hyperbolic sine as a geometric series and interchange absolutely convergent sums at every :This exact positive-denominator form is useful near the shock. For small and , expand the denominator of the terms with small and use . The leading sum isFor the shock-layer scaling , the passage to this sum follows from dominated convergence: and for small provide a summable bound proportional to . The same leading expression matches the outer small-angle range . More generally, split the exact sum at with : the low terms have vanishing relative Taylor error, while the discarded exact and approximate tails are smaller than the leading expression by .
Now apply the partial-fraction identity for the hyperbolic tangent with :The Fay shock-layer asymptotics are thereforeThe angular shock thickness is , and its matched states are . At , both formulas vanish; the limiting slopes agree. The denominator throughout this derivation is as printed in the PDF, not the erroneous in the converted TeX.