Instability of rarefaction shocks in systems of conservation laws

The authors have clarified the precise sense in which the rarefaction shock solutions of nonlinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws are unstable for systems of equations. They show that any shock wave solution of a general system of conservation law is unstable in the class of smooth solutions, whenever there exists another solution to the Riemann problem having the same data that consists entirely of constant states separated only by rarefaction waves and contact discontinuities where at least one of the rarefaction waves is of non-zero strength. For \(2\times 2\) systems they show that this condition is both necessary and sufficient. They have proved that for \(3\times 3\) Euler equations, rarefaction shocks of ``moderate strength are unstable in the class of smooth solutions if and only if the adiabatic gas constant \(\gamma\) satisfies \(1<\gamma <5/3\). In the final section of the paper the authors show how their study of rarefaction shock waves leads to a seemingly paradoxical situation, whereby it appears that a Riemann problem admits two distinct solutions. Throughout the paper the authors have used the standard notation and terminology of shock waves.

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