We study convolution groups generated by completely monotone sequences and completely monotone functions. Using a convolution group, we define a fractional calculus for a certain class of distributions. When acting on causal functions, this definition agrees with the traditional Riemann-Liouville definition for t>0 but includes some singularities at t=0 so that the group property holds. Using this group, we are able to extend the definition of Caputo derivatives of order in (0,1) to a certain class of locally integrable functions without using the first derivative. The group property allows us to de-convolve the fractional differential equations to integral equations with completely monotone kernels, which then enables us to prove the general Gronwall inequality (or comparison principle) with the most general conditions. This then opens the door of a priori energy estimates of fractional PDEs. Some other fundamental results for fractional ODEs are also established within this frame under very weak conditions. Besides, we also obtain some interesting results about completely monotone sequences.

We prove a Harnack inequality for positive harmonic functions on graphs which is similar to a classical result of Yau on Riemannian manifolds. Also, we prove a mean value inequality of nonnegative subharmonic functions on graphs.

In this paper we prove global regularity for the full water-wave system in three dimensions for small data, under the influence of both gravity and surface tension. This problem presents essential difficulties which were absent in all of the earlier global regularity results for other water-wave models. To construct global solutions, we use a combination of energy estimates and matching dispersive estimates. There is a significant new difficulty in proving energy estimates in our problem, namely the combination of slow pointwise decay of solutions (no better than |t|−5/6) and the presence of a large, codimension-1, set of quadratic time-resonances. To deal with such a situation, we propose here a new mechanism, which exploits a non-degeneracy property of the time-resonant hypersurfaces and some special structure of the quadratic part of the non-linearity, connected to the conserved energy of the system. The dispersive estimates rely on analysis of the Duhamel formula in the Fourier space. The main contributions come from the set of space-time resonances, which is a large set of dimension 1. To control the corresponding bilinear interactions, we use harmonic analysis techniques, such as orthogonality arguments in the Fourier space and atomic decompositions of functions. Most importantly, we construct and use a refined norm which is well adapted to the geometry of the problem.

We study the effective fronts of first order front propagations in two dimensions (n=2) in the periodic setting. Using PDE-based approaches, we show that for every α∈(0,1), the class of centrally symmetric polygons with rational vertices and nonempty interior is admissible as effective fronts for given front speeds in C^{1,α}(T^2,(0,∞)). This result can also be formulated in the language of stable norms corresponding to periodic metrics in T^2. Similar results were known long time ago when n≥3 for front speeds in C^∞(T^n,(0,∞)). Due to topological restrictions, the two dimensional case is much more subtle. In fact, the effective front is C^1, which cannot be a polygon, for given C^{1,1}(T^2,(0,∞)) front speeds. Our regularity requirements on front speeds are hence optimal. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that polygonal effective fronts have been constructed in two dimensions.

We study the averaging of fronts moving with positive oscillatory normal velocity, which is periodic in space and stationary ergodic in time. The problem can be formulated as the homogenization of coercive level set Hamilton-Jacobi equations with spatio-temporal oscillations. To overcome the difficulties due to the oscillations in time and the linear growth of the Hamiltonian, we first study the long time averaged behavior of the associated reachable sets using geometric arguments. The results are new for higher than one dimensions even in the space-time periodic setting.