Wave-front tracking for the equations of non-isentropic gas dynamics (Q2340930)

The authors study the model equations of polytropic gas dynamics, which constitute a system of three hyperbolic conservation laws. Global in time BV solutions were obtained by \textit{T.-P. Liu} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 26, 147--177 (1977; Zbl 0361.35056)] provided that \((\gamma -1)\) times the total variation of the initial data is sufficiently small (here, \(\gamma\) is the adiabatic coefficient). The aim of this paper is to give an alternative proof by exploiting the Dafermos-Bressan-Risebro wave-front tracking scheme. An original feature is the use of the path decomposition method to obtain pathwise estimates of the approximate solutions. These estimates show the decay properties of the solutions and play a crucial role in proving the stability of the wave-front tracking scheme.