Vanishing viscosity solutions for conservation laws with regulated flux (Q1993968)

Motivated by triangular systems of conservation laws of the form \[ \begin{aligned} u_t + F(v,u)_x & = 0, \\ v_t +g(v)_x & = 0 \end{aligned}\] and the corresponding vanishing viscosity limit \[ \begin{aligned} u_t + F(v,u)_x & = \varepsilon u_{xx}, \\ v_t +g(v)_x & = 0\end{aligned} \] the authors study the Cauchy problem for a one-dimensional conservation law with discontinuous coefficients \[ u_t +F(v(t,x),u)_x = 0, \qquad u(0,x)=u_0(x), \] where \(v(t,x)\) is a suitably defined regulated function of two variables. It is shown that the viscous problem \[ u_t^\varepsilon +F(v(t,x),u^\varepsilon)_x = \varepsilon u^\varepsilon_{xx}, \qquad u^\varepsilon(0,x)=u_0(x) \] possesses a solution for each \(\varepsilon>0\) and that \(u^\varepsilon\rightharpoonup u\) converges weakly to a unique limit which is a solution to the inviscid Cauchy problem. The proof involves a comparison theorem for integrated solutions to parabolic equations with discontinuous coefficients and a characterization of those flux functions \(f\) for which \[ u_t +f(t,x,u)_x=\varepsilon u_{xx} \] possesses a unique weak limit as \(\varepsilon\searrow 0\). In order to apply the results to triangular systems of conservation laws it is then shown that solutions to the hyperbolic conservation law \[ v_t+g(v)_x =0 \] are regulated functions if \(g\) is convex or if \(g\) has at most one inflection point and the initial condition \(v_0\) is of bounded variation.