Analysis and Numerics for Conservation Laws - Tapa dura

Reseña del editor

Whatdoasupernovaexplosioninouterspace,?owaroundanairfoil and knocking in combustion engines have in common? The physical and chemical mechanisms as well as the sizes of these processes are quite di?erent. So are the motivations for studying them scienti?cally. The super- 8 nova is a thermo-nuclear explosion on a scale of 10 cm. Astrophysicists try to understand them in order to get insight into fundamental properties of the universe. In ?ows around airfoils of commercial airliners at the scale of 3 10 cm shock waves occur that in?uence the stability of the wings as well as fuel consumption in ?ight. This requires appropriate design of the shape and structure of airfoils by engineers. Knocking occurs in combustion, a chemical 1 process, and must be avoided since it damages motors. The scale is 10 cm and these processes must be optimized for e?ciency and environmental conside- tions. The common thread is that the underlying ?uid ?ows may at a certain scale of observation be described by basically the same type of hyperbolic s- tems of partial di?erential equations in divergence form, called conservation laws. Astrophysicists, engineers and mathematicians share a common interest in scienti?c progress on theory for these equations and the development of computational methods for solutions of the equations. Due to their wide applicability in modeling of continua, partial di?erential equationsareamajor?eldofresearchinmathematics. Asubstantialportionof mathematical research is related to the analysis and numerical approximation of solutions to such equations. Hyperbolic conservation laws in two or more spacedimensionsstillposeoneofthemainchallengestomodernmathematics.

Reseña del editor

The priority research program Analysis and Numerics for Conservation Laws was funded by the German research foundation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for a period of six years starting in 1997. The diversity of topics, represented in the present book, was one of the strengths of the research program. Research groups of very different background, most of which were interacting for the first time, contributed to this interdisciplinary work.

The present book contains contributions from interlinked participating projects ranging from the analysis of hyperbolic systems of first order partial differential equations, the development of improved numerical methods for these equations to applications in astrophysics and engineering. It aims at conveying their results achieved in the program to readers outside of their own particular field.

The book contains a large number of figures and a number of color plates. The reader can find an up-to-date presentation of many current research topics in the field.