Viscous limits for piecewise smooth solutions to systems of conservation laws

In this paper we study the zero dissipation problem for a general system of conservation laws with positive viscosity. It is shown that if the solution of the problem with zero viscosity is piecewise smooth with a finite number of noninteracting shocks satisfying the entropy condition, then there exist solutions to the corresponding system with viscosity that converge to the solutions of the system without viscosity away from shock discontinuities at a rate of order ε as the viscosity coefficient ε goes to zero. The proof uses a matched asymptotic analysis and an energy estimate related to the stability theory for viscous shock profiles.