Stability of non-isentropic gaseous stars

Abstract

We study the linear stability of compactly supported static spherical equilibria of the non-isentropic Euler--Poisson system. In the Schwarzschild-stable case, the linearized equations are realized as a separable Hamiltonian system on weighted spaces adapted to the physical vacuum. We prove stability against non-radial perturbations and show that the algebraic dimension of the radial unstable subspace is the Morse index of a density quadratic form subject only to the mass constraint. Thus the infinitely many linearized entropy constraints reduce, for radial perturbations, to one mass constraint and an explicit entropy reconstruction. We apply this criterion to two entropy prescriptions. No smallness condition is imposed on a fixed entropy--density relation: under the stated effective-pressure and branch hypotheses, a simple mass maximum is not a stability transition. By contrast, for a small entropy distribution fixed as a function of enclosed mass, the turning-point principle holds. In the Schwarzschild-unstable case, we construct the self-adjoint velocity operator from its quadratic form, prove a strictly negative spectral bottom and sharp exponential growth, and reconstruct energy solutions of the original first-order linearized system.