Abstract In this paper, we provide an alternative proof for the classical Sz. Nagy inequality in one dimension by a variational method and generalize it to higher dimensions J(h):=(∫Rd|h| dx)a611∫Rd|63h|2 dx(∫Rd|h|m+1 dx)a+1m+1≥β0, where m > 0 for d = 1, 2, for , and . The Euler–Lagrange equation for critical points of in the non-negative radial decreasing function space is given by a free boundary problem for a generalized Lane–Emden equation, which has a unique solution (denoted by h c ) and the solution determines the best constant for the above generalized Sz. Nagy inequality. The connection between the critical mass for the thin-film equation and the best constant of the Sz. Nagy inequality in one dimension was first noted by Witelski et al (2004 Eur. J. Appl. Math. 15 223–56). For the following critical thin film equation in multi-dimension ht+6366(h 63Δh)+6366(h 63hm)=0,x∈Rd, where m = 1 + 2/d, the critical mass is also given by . A finite time blow-up occurs for solutions with the initial mass larger than M c . On the other hand, if the initial mass is less than M c and a global non-negative entropy weak solution exists, then the second moment goes to infinity as or in for some subsequence . This shows that a part of the mass spreads to infinity.

Light bullets are spatially localized ultra-short optical pulses in more than one space dimensions. They contain only a few electromagnetic oscillations under their envelopes and propagate long distances without essentially changing shapes. Light bullets of femtosecond durations have been observed in recent numerical simulation of the full Maxwell systems. The sineGordon (SG) equation comes as an asymptotic reduction of the two level dissipationless MaxwellBloch system. We derive a new and complete nonlinear Schrdinger (NLS) equation in two space dimensions for the SG pulse envelopes so that it is globally well-posed and has all the relevant higher order terms to regularize the collapse of the standard critical NLS (CNLS). We perform a modulation analysis and found that SG pulse envelopes undergo focusingdefocusing cycles. Numerical results are in qualitative agreement with asymptotics and

We consider the problem of the random fluctuations in the solutions to elliptic PDEs with highly oscillatory random coefficients. In our setting, as the correlation length of the fluctuations tends to zero, the heterogeneous solution converges to a deterministic solution obtained by averaging. When the Green’s function to the unperturbed operator is sufficiently singular (i.e., not square integrable locally), the leading corrector to the averaged solution may be either deterministic or random, or both in a sense we shall explain. Our main application is the solution of an elliptic problem with random Robin boundary condition that may be used to model diffusion of signaling molecules through a layer of cells into a bulk of extracellular medium. The problem is then described by an elliptic pseudo-differential operator (a Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator) on the boundary of the domain with random potential. In the physical setting of a three dimensional extracellular medium on top of a two-dimensional surface of cells forming a layer of epithelium, we show that the approximate corrector to averaging consists of a deterministic correction plus a Gaussian field of amplitude proportional to the correlation length of the random medium. The result is obtained under some assumptions on the four-point correlation function in the medium. We provide examples of such random media based on Gaussian and Poisson statistics.

We establish two nonlinear compactness theorems in Lp(0,T;B) with hypothesis on time translations, which are nonlinear counterparts of two results by Simon (1987) [1]. The first theorem sharpens a result by Maitre (2003) [10] and is important in the study of doubly nonlinear elliptic–parabolic equations. Based on this theorem, we then obtain a time translation counterpart of a result by Dubinskii˘ (1965) [5], which is supposed to be useful in the study of some nonlinear kinetic equations (e.g. the FENE-type bead–spring chains model).

We show that the classical Cauchy problem for the incompressible 3d Navier-Stokes equations with (−1)-homogeneous initial data has a global scale-invariant solution which is smooth for positive times. Our main tech- nical tools are local-in-space regularity estimates near the initial time, which are of independent interest.