Front Tracking at AMS

Front Tracking at Stony Brook

Front Tracking is a numerical method for the solution of partial differential equations whose solutions have discontinuities. These discontinuities can be boundaries between different materials, shock waves, or even more exotic structures. Conservation laws are good examples of such partial differential equations: discontinuities may form spontaneously and persist. The Euler equation describing the motion of "dry" water, is an example of a conservation law.

The Front Tracking method has been developed over the last fifteen years primarily in the context of hyperbolic equations with specific applications in mind. Hyperbolic equations typically have discontinuous and possibly non-unique solutions. In the context of a specific application, we can usually figure out how the relevant solution should be selected. As a result we have a Front Tracking code for a variety of applications: