Instantaneous shock location and one-dimensional nonlinear stability of viscous shock waves

Abstract

We illustrate in a simple setting the instantaneous shock tracking approach to stability of viscous conservation laws introduced by Howard, Mascia, and Zumbrun. This involves a choice of the definition of instantaneous location of a viscous shock. We show that this choice is time-asymptotically equivalent both to the natural choice of least-squares fit pointed out by Goodman and to a simple phase condition used by Guès, Métivier, Williams, and Zumbrun in other contexts. More generally, we show that it is asymptotically equivalent to any location defined by a localized projection.