Numerical conservative solutions of the Hunter-Saxton equation (Q2026358)

The aim of this paper is to derive a convergent numerical method for conservative solutions of the Hunter-Saxton equation: \[u_t(t,x)+uu_t(t,x)=\frac{1}{2}\int_{-\infty}^xu^2_x(t,y)dy-\frac{1}{4}\int_{-\infty}^\infty u^2_x(t,y)dy.\] The method is based on piecewise linear projections, followed by evolution along characteristics where the time step is chosen in order to prevent wave breaking. The authors obtain convergence when the time step is proportional to the square root of the spatial step size, which is a milder restriction than the common CFL condition for conservation laws. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1, is an introduction to the subject. Section 2 deals with numerical conservative solutions of the Hunter-Saxton equation. Section 3 concerns numerical examples.