Abstract: We consider multidimensional hyperbolic systems of conservation laws with relaxation, together with their associated limit systems. A strong stability condition for such asymptotics has been introduced by Chen, Levermore, Liu in Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 47, 787-830, namely the existence of an entropy extension. We propose here a new stability condition, the reduced stability condition, which is weaker than the previous one, but still has the property to imply the subcharacteristic or interlacing conditions, and the dissipativity of the leading term in the Chapman-Enskog expansion. This reduced stability condition has the advantage to involve only the submanifold of equilibria, or maxwellians, so that it is much easier to check than the entropy extension condition. Our condition generalizes the one introduced by the author in the case of kinetic, i.e. diagonal semilinear relaxation. We provide an adapted stability analysis in the context of approximate Riemann solvers obtained via relaxation systems.
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