Partition of Waves in a System of Conservation Laws

The aim of this paper is to give a simple proof of the classical Liu estimate on the decay of positive waves in a solution of a n×n system of conservation laws. In the first part, we transcribe the wave partition technique introduced in Comm. Math. Phys.57 (1977), 135–148 (by means of the Glimm scheme) to the case of approximate solutions constructed by the wave front tracking scheme. Then, we use a decoupling argument on the characteristic speeds to establish the desired estimate.