One-dimensional transport equations with discontinuous coefficients

Abstract

We consider one-dimensional linear transport equations with bounded but possibly discontinuous coefficient a. The Cauchy problem is studied from two different points of view. In the first case we assume that a is piecewise continuous. We give an existence result and a precise description of the solutions on the lines of discontinuity. In the second case, we assume that a satisfies a one-sided Lipschitz condition. We give existence, uniqueness and general stability results for backward Lipschitz solutions and forward measure solutions, by using a duality method. We prove that the flux associated to these measure solutions is a product by some canonical representative â of a. Key-words. Linear transport equations, discontinuous coefficients, weak stability, duality, product of a measure by a discontinuous function, nonnegative solutions. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 35F10, 35B35, 34A12. To appear in Nonlinear Analysis, TMA ∗Departement de Mathematiques et Applications, UMR CNRS 8553, Ecole Normale Superieure et CNRS, 45 rue d’Ulm, 75230 Paris Cedex 05, France, francois.bouchut@ens.fr †Mathematiques, Applications et Physique Mathematique d’Orleans, UMR CNRS 6628, Universite d’Orleans, 45067 Orleans Cedex 2, France, james@math.cnrs.fr