A two-dimensional hyperbolic system of nonlinear conservation laws with functional solutions

A two-dimensional hyperbolic system of nonlinear conservation laws is considered for any piecewise constant initial data having two discontinuity rays with the origin as vertex. One kind of new waves, which is labeled the Dirac-contact wave, appears in the solution. The entropy conditions for the Dirac-contact waves are given. The solutions on the Dirac-contact waves can be viewed as the bounded linear functionals onC ₀ ^∞ (R ² ×R ₊). Supported by CNSF and a grant from Academia Sinica Author’s current address: CMAP, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France