Stability of the Riemann solutions for a nonstrictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws Original Research Article

We prove that the Riemann solutions are stable for a nonstrictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws under local small perturbations of the Riemann initial data. The proof is based on the detailed analysis of the interactions of delta shock waves with shock waves and rarefaction waves. During the interaction process of the delta shock wave with the rarefaction wave, a new kind of nonclassical wave, namely a delta contact discontinuity, is discovered here, which is a Dirac delta function supported on a contact discontinuity and has already appeared in the interaction process for the magnetohydrodynamics equations [M. Nedeljkov and M. Oberguggenberger, Interactions of delta shock waves in a strictly hyperbolic system of conservation laws, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 344 (2008) 1143–1157]. Moreover, the global structures and large time asymptotic behaviors of the solutions are constructed and analyzed case by case.