Nonlinear stability of discrete shocks for systems of conservation laws

In this paper we study the asymptotic nonlinear stability of discrete shocks for the Lax-Friedrichs scheme for approximating general m×m systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws. It is shown that weak single discrete shocks for such a scheme are nonlinearly stable in the L ^p-norm for all p 1, provided that the sums of the initial perturbations equal zero. These results should shed light on the convergence of the numerical solution constructed by the Lax-Friedrichs scheme for the single-shock solution of system of hyperbolic conservation laws. If the Riemann solution corresponding to the given far-field states is a superposition of m single shocks from each characteristic family, we show that the corresponding multiple discrete shocks are nonlinearly stable in L ^p (P 2). These results are proved by using both a weighted estimate and a characteristic energy method based on the internal structures of the discrete shocks and the essential monotonicity of the Lax-Friedrichs scheme.