Viscous profiles of traveling waves in scalar balance laws: the canard case (Q2565452)

The author studies a traveling wave problem for scalar viscous conservation laws of the form \[ u_t+f(u)_x=\varepsilon u_{xx}+g(u) \leqno (*)_\varepsilon \] with a small viscosity parameter \(\varepsilon>0\), where the reaction term \(g\in C^2\) has exactly three simple zeros \(u_l<u_m<u_r\) with \(g'(u_l),g'(u_r)<0\), \(0<g'(u_m)\), and the flow function \(f\in C^3\) satisfies \(f''(u_m)>0\), \(f'(w_1)<f'(u_m)<f'(w_2)\) for all \(w_1<u_m<w_2\). The basic question is whether traveling wave solutions of scalar hyperbolic balance laws \((\ast)_0\) can be obtained by vanishing viscosity approximation. After the traveling waves ansatz a planar autonomous ordinary differential equation is investigated by a phase plane analysis and methods inspired by quite recent results from singular perturbation theory (see \textit{M.\ Krupa} and \textit{P.\ Szmolyan} [SIAM J.\ Math.\ Anal.\ 33, No.\ 2, 286--314 (2001; Zbl 1002.34046)]). For sufficiently small \(\varepsilon>0\) it is shown that there exists a unique wave speed \(s(\varepsilon)\) and a continuous traveling wave \(u_\varepsilon\) connecting \(u_l\) and \(u_r\), and the continuous increasing waves (traveling with speed \(f'(u_m)\)) are limit of viscous traveling waves. Using a Melnikov-like approach, the dependence of \(s(\varepsilon)\) on \(\varepsilon\) is estimated up to order \(O(\varepsilon^{3/2})\). Finally, the author proves that all discontinuous heteroclinic traveling waves of the inviscid equation \((\ast)_0\) with wave speed \(f'(u_m)\) are not admissible, i.e. are not limits of traveling waves for \((\ast)_{\varepsilon}\) for \(\varepsilon\to 0+\). The paper is nicely written and proofs are illustrated by helpful pictures.