Dynamical stability and vanishing viscosity: A case study of a non-strictly hyperbolic system (Q4036085)

The author considers and compares the concepts of dynamical stability and of vanishing viscosity, as applied to traveling step discontinuities of the system \[ {\mathbf u}_ t+(|{\mathbf u}|^ 2{\mathbf u})_ x=0,\;(x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^ 2,\;{\mathbf u}(x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^ n \tag{1} \] of partial differential equations, and to the Riemann problem for (1). In sharp contrast to other systems, he finds a high degree of discrepancy between these two common approaches to the problem of stability of shock waves. The main result is that the viscosity method cannot define a well-behaved continuous solution operator, whereas the concept of dynamical stability leads to such an operator at least for the Riemann problem. On the level of individual discontinuities, this disagreement is reflected by the fact that there are many shocks which have viscous profiles but are not dynamically stable.