In this paper, we provide rigorous justification of the hydrostatic approximation and the derivation of primitive equations as the small aspect ratio limit of the incompressible three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations in the anisotropic horizontal viscosity regime. Setting $\varepsilon >0$ to be the small aspect ratio of the vertical to the horizontal scales of the domain, we investigate the case when the horizontal and vertical viscosities in the incompressible three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are of orders $O(1)$ and $O(\varepsilon^\alpha)$, respectively, with $\alpha>2$, for which the limiting system is the primitive equations with only horizontal viscosity as $\varepsilon$ tends to zero. In particular we show that for ``well prepared" initial data the solutions of the scaled incompressible three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations converge strongly, in any finite interval of time, to the corresponding solutions of the anisotropic primitive equations with only horizontal viscosities, as $\varepsilon$ tends to zero, and that the convergence rate is of order $O\left(\varepsilon^\frac\beta2\right)$, where $\beta=\min\{\alpha-2,2\}$. Note that this result is different from the case $\alpha=2$ studied in [Li, J.; Titi, E.S.: \emph{The primitive equations as the small aspect ratio limit of the Navier-Stokes equations: Rigorous justification of the hydrostatic approximation}, J. Math. Pures Appl., \textbf{124} \rm(2019), 30--58], where the limiting system is the primitive equations with full viscosities and the convergence is globally in time and its rate of order $O\left(\varepsilon\right)$.

During the past year a group of 12 graduate students, a visiting researcher and a postdoctoral fellow, supported in part by this contract, have studied various nonlinear partial differential equations. Seminars were held twice weekly on the topic of soliton theory. The graduate students involved have been studying the problem of singularity that arises in nonlinear equations.

In the present paper, we prove an improved Combes–Thomas estimate, viz. the Combes–Thomas estimate in trace-class norms, for magnetic Schrödinger operators under general assumptions. In particular, we allow for unbounded potentials. We also show that for any function in the Schwartz space on the reals the operator kernel decays, in trace-class norms, faster than any polynomial.

The nonlinear Schrdinger equation (NLS) has been a fundamental model for understanding vortex motion in superfluids. The vortex motion law has been formally derived on various physical grounds and has been around for almost half a century. We study the nonlinear Schrdinger equation in the incompressible fluid limit on a bounded domain with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary condition. The initial condition contains any finite number of degree 1 vortices. We prove that the NLS linear momentum weakly converges to a solution of the incompressible Euler equation away from the vortices. If the initial NLS energy is almost minimizing, we show that the vortex motion obeys the classical Kirchhoff law for fluid point vortices. Similar results hold for the entire plane and periodic cases, and a related complex GinzburgLandau equation. We treat as well the semi-classical (WKB) limit of NLS in the presence of

Nonlinear hyperbolic systems with relaxations may encounter different scales of relaxation time, which is a prototype multiscale phenomenon that arises in many applications. In such a problem the relaxation time is of O(1) in part of the domain and very small in the remaining domain in which the solution can be approximated by the zero relaxation limit which can be solved numerically much more efficiently. For the Jin–Xin relaxation system in such a two-scale setting, we establish its wellposedness and singular limit as the (smaller) relaxation time goes to zero. The limit is a multiscale coupling problem which couples the original Jin–Xin system on the domain when the relaxation time is O(1) with its relaxation limit in the other domain through interface conditions which can be derived by matched interface layer analysis.As a result, we also establish the well-posedness and regularity (such as boundedness in sup norm with bounded total variation and L 1-contraction) of the coupling problem, thus providing a rigorous mathematical foundation, in the general nonlinear setting, to the multiscale domain decomposition method for this two-scale problem originally proposed in Jin et al. in Math. Comp. 82, 749–779, 2013.