Hadamard Local Well-Posedness for Compressible Liquids with a Free Surface

We prove local well-posedness in the Hadamard sense for the three-dimensional compressible Euler equations governing a liquid with a free surface and no surface tension. Under the Taylor sign condition and the boundary compatibility conditions, we establish existence, uniqueness, and strong continuous dependence in a hybrid Sobolev class for every $s>3$. The velocity and interface have $H^s$ regularity, while the enthalpy and velocity divergence belong to $H^{s+1\mathrm{/}2}$ and $H^{s-1\mathrm{/}2}$, respectively. This separation reflects the coupling of a nondegenerate acoustic equation with the free-surface and vorticity dynamics. The proof uses regularization operators that smooth the moving domain and extend the nonlinear compatibility hierarchy, together with $L^2$ and partial $H^2$ distance estimates for solutions on different domains. Regular solutions are constructed by a regularized forward Euler scheme. High-order energy estimates and frequency envelopes then yield strong convergence of smooth approximations and continuity of the data-to-solution map. Integer Sobolev indices are treated using a Lions–Magenes endpoint compatibility condition.