\(\Gamma\)-entropy cost for scalar conservation laws (Q849224)

The paper is concerned with a control problem related to the vanishing viscosity approximation to the scalar conservation law \(u_t+f(u)_x=0\). The authors investigate the \(\Gamma\)-convergence of the control cost functional \(I_{\varepsilon}\), as the viscosity coefficient \(\varepsilon\) tends to zero. It is shown that the functional \(I_{\varepsilon}\) can be defined as the work done by an optimal controlling field. A first-order \(\Gamma\)-limit is established which characterizes the measure-valued solutions to the conservation laws as the zeros of the \(\Gamma\)-limit. An important result concerns the \(\Gamma\)-convergence of rescaled cost functional \(H_{\varepsilon}\) which is studied under the hypotheses that the flux \(f\) is smooth and that there are no intervals in which \(f\) is affine. A compensated compactness argument shows that \(H_{\varepsilon}\) has enough coercivity properties to force its convergence in a functions setting and not in a Young measures setting.