An in-depth analysis of wave interactions for general systems of hyperbolic and viscous conservation laws.

Here is an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of wave interactions for general systems of hyperbolic and viscous conservation laws. This self-contained study of shock waves explains the new wave phenomena from both a physical and a mathematical standpoint. The analysis is useful for the study of various physical situations, including nonlinear elasticity, magnetohydrodynamics, multiphase flows, combustion, and classical gas dynamics shocks. The central issue throughout the book is the understanding of nonlinear wave interactions.

Systems of partial differential equations reflecting conservation laws hold significant relevance to a variety of theoretical and practical applications, including compressible fluid flow, electromagnetism, elasticity theory, and other areas of continuum mechanics. This field of nonlinear analysis is currently experiencing a marked increase in successful research activity. The EU-TMR network "Hyperbolic Systems of Conservation Laws held a summer program offering short courses on the Analysis of Systems of Conservation Laws. This book contains five of the self-contained short courses presented during this program by experts of international reputation. These courses, which address solutions to hyperbolic systems by the front tracking method, non-strictly hyperbolic conservation laws, hyperbolic-elliptic coupled systems, hyperbolic relaxation problems, the stability of nonlinear waves in viscous media and numerics, and more, represent the state of the art of most central aspects of the field.

Conservation laws are the mathematical expression of the principles of conservation and provide effective and accurate predictive models of our physical world. Although intense research activity during the last decades has led to substantial advances in the development of powerful computational methods for conservation laws, their solution remains a challenge and many questions are left open; thus it is an active and fruitful area of research. Numerical Methods for Conservation Laws: From Analysis to Algorithms offers the first comprehensive introduction to modern computational methods and their analysis for hyperbolic conservation laws, building on intense research activities for more than four decades of development; discusses classic results on monotone and finite difference/finite volume schemes, but emphasizes the successful development of high-order accurate methods for hyperbolic conservation laws; addresses modern concepts of TVD and entropy stability, strongly stable Runge-Kutta schemes, and limiter-based methods before discussing essentially nonoscillatory schemes, discontinuous Galerkin methods, and spectral methods; explores algorithmic aspects of these methods, emphasizing one- and two-dimensional problems and the development and analysis of an extensive range of methods; includes MATLAB software with which all main methods and computational results in the book can be reproduced; and demonstrates the performance of many methods on a set of benchmark problems to allow direct comparisons. Code and other supplemental material will be available online at publication.

These notes developed from a course on the numerical solution of conservation laws first taught at the University of Washington in the fall of 1988 and then at ETH during the following spring. The overall emphasis is on studying the mathematical tools that are essential in de veloping, analyzing, and successfully using numerical methods for nonlinear systems of conservation laws, particularly for problems involving shock waves. A reasonable un derstanding of the mathematical structure of these equations and their solutions is first required, and Part I of these notes deals with this theory. Part II deals more directly with numerical methods, again with the emphasis on general tools that are of broad use. I have stressed the underlying ideas used in various classes of methods rather than present ing the most sophisticated methods in great detail. My aim was to provide a sufficient background that students could then approach the current research literature with the necessary tools and understanding. vVithout the wonders of TeX and LaTeX, these notes would never have been put together. The professional-looking results perhaps obscure the fact that these are indeed lecture notes. Some sections have been reworked several times by now, but others are still preliminary. I can only hope that the errors are not too blatant. Moreover, the breadth and depth of coverage was limited by the length of these courses, and some parts are rather sketchy.

We consider a system of n conservation laws: [partial derivative/boundary/degree of a polynomial symbol]∂u [over] [partial derivative/boundary/degree of a polynomial symbol]∂t + [partial derivative/boundary/degree of a polynomial symbol]∂f(u) [over] [partial derivative/boundary/degree of a polynomial symbol]∂x = 0. The system is assumed to be strictly hyperbolic, but not necessarily genuinely nonlinear in the sense of Peter Lax (Hyperbolic systems of conservation laws, 1957). Our purpose is to study the regularity, large-time behavior and the approximation of the solution of the initial-value problem. Our analysis is based on the random choice method, using the solution of the Riemann problem, as building blocks.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Summer Program on Nonlinear Conservation Laws and Applications held at the IMA on July 13--31, 2009. Hyperbolic conservation laws is a classical subject, which has experienced vigorous growth in recent years. The present collection provides a timely survey of the state of the art in this exciting field, and a comprehensive outlook on open problems. Contributions of more theoretical nature cover the following topics: global existence and uniqueness theory of one-dimensional systems, multidimensional conservation laws in several space variables and approximations of their solutions, mathematical analysis of fluid motion, stability and dynamics of viscous shock waves, singular limits for viscous systems, basic principles in the modeling of turbulent mixing, transonic flows past an obstacle and a fluid dynamic approach for isometric embedding in geometry, models of nonlinear elasticity, the Monge problem, and transport equations with rough coefficients. In addition, there are a number of papers devoted to applications. These include: models of blood flow, self-gravitating compressible fluids, granular flow, charge transport in fluids, and the modeling and control of traffic flow on networks.

In this paper we establish the nonlinear stability of shock waves for viscous conservation laws. It is shown that when the initial data is a perturbation of viscous shock waves, then the solution converges to viscous shock waves, properly translated, as time tends to infinity.

This is a lucid and authoritative exposition of the mathematical theory of hyperbolic system laws. The second edition contains a new chapter recounting exciting recent developments on the vanishing viscosity method. Numerous new sections introduce newly derived results. From the reviews: "The author is known as one of the leading experts in the field. His masterly written book is, surely, the most complete exposition in the subject of conservations laws." --Zentralblatt MATH