Spectral stability of small shock waves (Q1861165)

The authors study the ``Evans bundles'' associated with the eigenvalue problem \[ KP+\biggl(\bigl(Df(\varphi)-sI\bigr)p\biggr)'=p'', \tag{1} \] where \(\varphi\) is a shock wave, that is \(v_\varphi(x,t) =\varphi(x-st)\), \(\varphi (\pm\infty) =v^\pm\), \(v_t+(f(v))_x =v_{xx}\), with \(f:W\to \mathbb{R}^N\) smooth, \(W\subset \mathbb{R}^N\) convex and open, and \(Df\) \(\mathbb{R}\)-diagonalizable. To this end the authors use an appropriate notion of convergence of stability properties in the zero shock strength limit. These properties are encoded in the behaviour of Evans bundles. The authors study shocks associated with simple (or multiple) eigenvalues. Their analysis shows that in the small-amplitude limit viscous or relaxational profiles have a slow-fast structure which carries over to the eigenvalue problem. Here due to a suitable scaling the slow-fast structure becomes more explicit. In contrast to many existing work on Evans functions, the authors focus directly on a pointwise analysis (in fact construction) of the Evans bundles.