A basic, simple energy method for the Boltzmann equation is presented here. It is based on a new macromicro decomposition of the Boltzmann equation as well as the H-theorem. This allows us to make use of the ideas from hyperbolic conservation laws and viscous conservation laws to yield the direct energy method. As an illustration, we apply the method for the study of the time-asymptotic, nonlinear stability of the global Maxwellian states. Previous energy method, starting with Grad and finishing with Ukai, involves the spectral analysis and regularity of collision operator through sophisticated weighted norms.

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.

We study the periodic homogenization of first order front propagations. Based on PDE methods, we provide a simple proof that, for n ≥ 3, the class of centrally symmetric polytopes with rational coordinates and nonempty interior is admissible as effective fronts, which was also established by I. Babenko and F. Balacheff [Sur la forme de la boule unit\'e de la norme stable unidimensionnelle, Manuscripta Math. 119 (2006) 347--358] and M. Jotz [Hedlund metrics and the stable norm, Diff. Geometry Appl. 27 (2009) 543--550] in the form of stable norms as an extension of G. A. Hedlund's classical result [Geodesics on a two-dimensional Riemannian manifold with periodic coefficients, Ann. Math. 33 (1932) 719--739]. Besides, we obtain the optimal convergence rate of the homogenization problem for this class.

Let G=(V,E) be a locally finite graph. Firstly, using calculus of variations, including a direct method of variation and the mountain-pass theory, we get sequences of solutions to several local equations on G (the Schrödinger equation, the mean field equation, and the Yamabe equation). Secondly, we derive uniform estimates for those local solution sequences. Finally, we obtain global solutions by extracting convergent sequence of solutions. Our method can be described as a variational method from local to global.

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