VISCOUS SHOCK PROFILES FOR 2 × 2 SYSTEMS OF HYPERBOLIC CONSERVATION LAWS WITH AN UMBILIC POINT

This article analyzes the existence of viscous shock profiles joining two states satisfying the Rankine–Hugoniot condition that comes from hyperbolic 2 × 2 systems of conservation laws having quadratic flux functions with an isolated umbilic point: the point where the characteristic speeds coincide and the Jacobian matrix of the flux functions is diagonalizable. The systems studied in this note are particularly in Schaeffer and Shearer's cases I and II which are relevant to the three-phase Buckley–Leverett model for oil reservoir flow. It is shown that any compressive and overcompressive shocks have a viscous shock profile provided that there are no undercompressive shock with viscous profile having the same propagation speed. The idea of the proof is a generalization of the first theorem of Morse to noncompact level sets. It is also shown that there exists a shock satisfying the Liu–Oleĭnik condition but having no viscous shock profile. In this case, there is an undercompressive shock with viscous shock profile.