Quasilinear continuity equations of measures for bounded BV vector fields

Abstract

The focus of interest here is a quasilinear form of the conservative continuity equation d/dt v + D·(f(v, ·) v) = 0 (in R^N× ]0, T[) together with its measure-valued distributional solutions. On the basis of Ambrosio’s results about the nonautonomous linear equation, the existence and uniqueness of solutions are investigated for coefficients being bounded vector fields with bounded spatial variation and Lebesgue absolutely continuous divergence in combination with positive measures absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure. The step towards the nonlinear problem here relies on a further generalization of Aubin's mutational equations that is extending the notions of distribution-like solutions and weak compactness to a set supplied with a countable family of (possibly non–symmetric) distance functions (so–called ostensible metrics).