Non-existence of classical solutions to a two-phase flow model with vacuum

Abstract In this paper, we study the well-posedness of classical solutions to a two-phase flow model consisting of the pressureless Euler equations coupled with the isentropic compressible Navier–Stokes equations via a drag forcing term. We consider the case that the fluid densities may contain a vacuum, and the viscosities are density-dependent functions. Under suitable assumptions on the initial data, we show that the finite-energy (i.e. in the inhomogeneous Sobolev space) classical solutions to the Cauchy problem of this coupled system do not exist for any small time.