On compactness estimates for hyperbolic systems of conservation laws

Abstract

We study the compactness in $L^{1}_{loc}$ of the semigroup mapping $(S_t)_{t > 0}$ defining entropy weak solutions of general hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in one space dimension. We establish a lower estimate for the Kolmogorov $\varepsilon$-entropy of the image through the mapping $S_t$ of bounded sets in $L^{1}\cap L^\infty$, which is of the same order $1/\varepsilon$ as the ones established by the authors for scalar conservation laws. We also provide an upper estimate of order $1/\varepsilon$ for the Kolmogorov $\varepsilon$-entropy of such sets in the case of Temple systems with genuinely nonlinear characteristic families, that extends the same type of estimate derived by De Lellis and Golse for scalar conservation laws with convex flux. As suggested by Lax, these quantitative compactness estimates could provide a measure of the order of "resolution" of the numerical methods implemented for these equations.