Fractional regularity for conservation laws with discontinuous flux

Abstract

This article deals with the regularity of the entropy solutions of scalar conservation laws with discontinuous flux. It is well-known [Adimurthi et al., Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 2011] that the entropy solution for such equation does not admit BV regularity in general, even when the initial data belongs to BV. Due to this phenomenon fractional BVs spaces wider than BV are required, where the exponent 0<s\leq 1 and BV = BV1. It is a long standing open question to find the optimal regularizing effect for the discontinuous flux with L^\infty initial data. The optimal regularizing effect in BVs is proven on an important case using control theory. The fractional exponent s is at most 1/2 even when the fluxes are uniformly convex.