The global existence of weak solutions to the compressible NavierStokes equations with vacuum attracts many research interests nowadays. For the isentropic gas, the viscosity coefficient depends on density function from physical point of view. When the density function connects to vacuum continuously, the vacuum degeneracy gives some analytic difficulties in proving global existence. In this paper, we consider this case with gravitational force and fixed boundary condition. By giving a series of <i>a priori</i> estimates on the solution coping with the degeneracy of vacuum, gravitational force and boundary effect, we give global existence and uniqueness results similar to the case without force and boundary. Copyright 2006 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Abstract We study a class of fourth order nonlinear parabolic equations which include the thin-film equation and the quantum drift-diffusion model as special cases. We investigate these equations by first developing functional inequalities of the type $$ \int_\Omega u^{2\gamma-\alpha-\beta}\Delta\ua\Delta\ub dx \geq c\int_\Omega|\Delta \ur |^2dx, $$ which seem to be of interest on their own right.

We study the front dynamics of the bistable reaction-diffusion equations with periodic diffusion and/or convection coefficients in several space dimensions. When traveling wave solutions exist, the solutions of the initial value problem behave as wave fronts propagating with the effective speeds of traveling waves under various initial conditions. Yet due to the bistable nature of the nonlinearity, traveling waves may not always exist when the medium variations from the mean states are large enough. Their existence is closely related to the detailed forms of diffusion and convection coefficients, more so in multidimension than in one. We present a simple sufficient condition for the nonexistence of traveling waves (quenching) using perturbation method. Our two dimensional finite difference numerical computations show a variety of front behaviors, such as: the propagation, quenching and retreat of fronts. We found

This paper investigates the generalized Keller-Segel (KS) system with a nonlocal diffusion term -ν(-Δ) α/2 ρ (1 < α < 2). Firstly, the global existence of weak solutions is proved for the initial density ρ0 ∈ L01∩L d/α (60d) (d ≥ 2) with [norm of matrix]ρ0[norm of matrix] d/α < K, where K is a universal constant only depending on d, α, ν. Moreover, the conservation of mass holds true and the weak solution satisfies some hyper-contractive and decay estimates in Lr for any 1 < r < ∞. Secondly, for the more general initial data ρ0 ∈ L01 ∩ L05(60d) (d = 2, 3), the local existence is obtained. Thirdly, for ρ0 ∈ L01 (60d; (1 + |x|)dx ∩ L∞(60d)( d ≥ 2) with [norm of matrix]ρ0[norm of matrix]d/α < K, we prove the uniqueness and stability of weak solutions under Wasserstein metric through the method of associating the KS equation with a self-consistent stochastic process driven by the rotationally invariant α-stable Lévy process Lα(t). Also, we prove the weak solution is L1 bounded uniformly in time. Lastly, we consider the N-particle interacting system with the Lévy process Lα(t) and the Newtonian potential aggregation and prove that the expectation of collision time between particles is below a universal constant if the moment ∫60d |x| γρ0dx for some 1 < γ < α is below a universal constant K γ and ν is also below a universal constant. Meanwhile, we prove the propagation of chaos as N → ∞ for the interacting particle system with a cut-off parameter ε ~ (ln N)-1/d, and show that the mean field limit equation is exactly the generalized KS equation.

We establish the solvability of second order divergence-type parabolic systems in Sobolev spaces. The leading coefficients are assumed to be merely measurable in one spatial direction on each small parabolic cylinder with the spatial direction allowed to depend on the cylinder. In the other orthogonal directions and the time variable, the coefficients have locally small mean oscillations. We also obtain the corresponding $W^1_p$-solvability of second order elliptic systems in divergence form. This type of system arises from the problems of linearly elastic laminates and composite materials. Our results are new even for scalar equations, and the proofs differ from and simplify the methods used previously in [H. Dong and D. Kim, <i>Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal.</i>, 196 (2010), pp. 2570]. As an application, we improve a result by Chipot, Kinderlehrer, and Vergara-Caffarelli [<i>Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal.</i>, 96 (1986), pp. 8196] on