For bounded entropy solutions of the same scalar law, satisfies the displayed distributional inequality, with initial value in its test-function form. The doubling of variables for scalar conservation laws, local translation continuity and the averaged initial trace of an entropy solution prove it. Its significance is comparison between two solutions rather than an inequality against a constant state.
For the stated mollifier, . Thus the interior doubled integral is
On a bounded state range, is Lipschitz in each argument, and so is : away from the diagonal each partial derivative has modulus at most , and the function is continuous across the diagonal. Local translation continuity therefore makes this converge to the corresponding single-time, single-space integral. The compact time support is chosen below , with a margin for .
The initial terms need a separate argument. Since the time kernel is supported at , is identically zero for , whereas samples at .
The averaged initial trace of an entropy solution follows directly from its inequalities. Test the constant-level entropy for with , using smooth approximations of that temporal cutoff. Boundedness of and its entropy flux gives
Approximate locally in by finitely many constants with a smooth nonnegative partition of unity. Applying this estimate on each partition member and using the triangle inequality makes the limsup of arbitrarily small. This proves its convergence to zero for each compact .
The time kernel has size and the spatial kernel is a normalized approximate identity. The averaged trace, followed by spatial translation continuity of , therefore gives . Its time mass is one, not one-half, because its whole support lies on the positive side. Consequently
This is the Kato inequality for scalar conservation laws with its initial contribution. Assuming an initial trace solely from interior translation continuity would leave a gap; the entropy argument above supplies it.