In this paper, we investigate the initial-boundary value problem to the heat conductive compressible Navier-Stokes equations. Local existence and uniqueness of strong solutions is established with any such initial data that the initial density $\rho_0$, velocity $u_0$, and temperature $\theta_0$ satisfy $\rho_0\in W^{1,q}$, with $q\in(3,6)$, $u_0\in H^1$, and $\sqrt{\rho_0}\theta_0\in L^2$. The initial density is assumed to be only nonnegative and thus the initial vacuum is allowed. In addition to the necessary regularity assumptions, we do not require any initial compatibility conditions such as those proposed in (Y. Cho and H. Kim, \emph{Existence results for viscous polytropic fluids with vacuum}, J. Differential Equations {\bf 228} (2006), no.~2, 377--411.), which although are widely used in many previous works but put some inconvenient constraints on the initial data. Due to the weaker regularities of the initial data and the absence of the initial compatibility conditions, leading to weaker regularities of the solutions compared with those in the previous works, the uniqueness of solutions obtained in the current paper does not follow from the arguments used in the existing literatures. Our proof of the uniqueness of solutions is based on the following new idea of two-stages argument: (i) showing that the difference of two solutions (or part of their components) with the same initial data is controlled by some power function of the time variable; (ii) carrying out some singular-in-time weighted energy differential inequalities fulfilling the structure of the Gr\"onwall inequality. The existence is established in the Euler coordinates, while the uniqueness is proved in the Lagrangian coordinates first and then transformed back to the Euler coordinates.

It is well known that the Boltzmann equation is related to the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations in the field of gas dynamics. The relation is either for small Knudsen number, or, for dissipative waves in the time-asymptotic sense. In this paper, we show that rarefaction waves for the Boltzmann equation are time-asymptotic stable and tend to the rarefaction waves for the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. Our main tool is the combination of techniques for viscous conservation laws and the energy method based on micro-macro decomposition of the Boltzmann equation. The expansion nature of the rarefaction waves and the suitable microscopic version of the <i>H</i>-theorem are essential elements of our analysis.

No abstract uploaded!

For a bipolar hydrodynamic model of semiconductors in the form of EulerPoisson equations with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, in this paper we first heuristically analyze the most probable asymptotic profile (the so-called diffusion waves) and then prove this long-time behavior rigorously. For this, we construct correction functions to show the convergence of the original solution to the diffusion wave with optimal convergence rates by the energy method. Moreover, in the case with Dirichlet boundary condition, when the initial perturbation is in some weighted L^1 space, a faster and optimal convergence rate is also given.

As a typical example of hyperbolic conservation laws, the system of Euler equations representing the conservation of mass, momentum and energy has three basic wave patterns. They are two nonlinear waves called shock and rarefaction wave, and one linearly degenerate wave called contact discontinuity. These basic wave patterns have their counterparts both in other physical models for gas motions in equilibrium involving viscosity and heat conductivity, and gas motion in non-equilibrium. The stability of these basic wave patterns in the system of Navier-Stokes equations and the Boltzmann equation has been an active research topic. Even though the stability of the two nonlinear wave patterns has been extensively studied, the stability of the linearly degenerate contact wave was not solved until recently. In this paper, we will briefly present our recent results in [32] on the stability of the contact wave patterns for both the Navier-Stokes equations and the Boltzmann equation.