Singularities and oscillations in solutions to conservation laws (Q1071177)

This paper is a brief survey of some recent results regarding hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in one space dimension \(u_ t+f(u)_ x=0\), \(u=u(x,t)\in {\mathbb{R}}^ m,\) and Euler equations in 2 space dimensions \(u_ t+u\cdot \nabla u+\nabla p=0\), \(\nabla \cdot u=0\). Included is the discussion of several generalized solution concepts and the properties of the singularities. Finally, a new definition of solution is given: A measurable map \((x,t)\mapsto \nu_{(x,t)}\) from \({\mathbb{R}}^ 2\) to probability measures over \({\mathbb{R}}^ n\) is a generalized solution of the conservation law above if \[ (\partial /\partial t)\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^ n}\lambda d\nu_{(x,t)}+(\partial /\partial x)\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^ n}f(\lambda) d\nu_{\quad (x,t)}=0 \] in the sense of distributions.