A wavefront tracking algorithm for \(N\times N\) nongenuinely nonlinear conservation laws (Q5957520)

The authors introduced a wavefront tracking algorithm for \(N\times N\) hyperbolic systems of conservation laws \(u_t+F(u)_x =0\), that admits characteristic fields that are neither genuinely nonlinear nor linear degenerate in the sense of Lax. Instead they suppose that, for any nongenuinely nonlinear \(i\)th characteristic family, the derivative of the \(i\)th right eigenvector \(\lambda_i (u)\) of \(Df(u)\) in the direction of the \(i\)th right eigenvector \(r_i (u)\) vanishes on a single \((N-1)\)-dimensional hypersurface in the \(u\)-space, transversal to the field \(r_i (u)\). Their construction provides an alternative method for establishing the global existence of weak solutions for such systems. They show that these solutions are entropy admissible in the sense of Lax.