Long time behaviour of viscous scalar conservation laws

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the stability of stationary solutions of the conservation law $\partial_t u + \mathrm{div}_y A(y,u) -Δ_y u=0$, where the flux $A$ is periodic with respect to its first variable. Essentially two kinds of asymptotic behaviours are studied here: the case when the equation is set on $\R$, and the case when it is endowed with periodic boundary conditions. In the whole space case, we first prove the existence of viscous stationary shocks - also called standing shocks - which connect two different periodic stationary solutions to one another. We prove that standing shocks are stable in $L^1$, provided the initial disturbance satisfies some appropriate boundedness conditions. We also extend this result to arbitrary initial data, but with some restrictions on the flux $A$. In the periodic case, we prove that periodic stationary solutions are always stable. The proof of this result relies on the derivation of uniform $L^\infty$ bounds on the solution of the conservation law, and on sub- and super-solution techniques.