  Tai-Ping Liu \cite{Liu\_JJ} introduced the notion of "physical solution' of
the isentropic Euler system when the gas is surrounded by vacuum. This notion
can be interpreted by saying that the front is driven by a force resulting from
a H\"older singularity of the sound speed. We address the question of when this
acceleration appears or when the front just move at constant velocity. We know
from \cite{Gra,SerAIF} that smooth isentropic flows with a non-accelerated
front exist globally in time, for suitable initial data. In even space
dimension, these solutions may persist for all $t\in\R$ ; we say that they are
{\em eternal}. We derive a sufficient condition in terms of the initial data,
under which the boundary singularity must appear. As a consequence, we show
that, in contrast to the even-dimensional case, eternal flows with a
non-accelerated front don't exist in odd space dimension. In one space
dimension, we give a refined definition of physical solutions. We show that for
a shock-free flow, their asymptotics as both ends $t\rightarrow\pm\infty$ are
intimately related to each other.
