We propose a conservation-dissipation formalism (CDF) for coarse-grained descriptions of irreversible processes. This formalism is based on a stability criterion for non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The criterion ensures that non-equilibrium states tend to equilibrium in long time. As a systematic methodology, CDF provides a feasible procedure in choosing non-equilibrium state variables and determining their evolution equations. The equations derived in CDF have a unified elegant form. They are globally hyperbolic, allow a convenient definition of weak solutions, and are amenable to existing numerics. More importantly, CDF is a genuinely nonlinear formalism and works for systems far away from equilibrium. With this formalism, we formulate novel thermodynamics theories for heat conduction in rigid bodies and non-isothermal compressible Maxwell fluid flows as two typical examples. In these examples, the non-equilibrium variables are exactly the conjugate variables of the heat fluxes or stress tensors. The new theory generalizes Cattaneo’s law or Maxwell’s law in a regularized and nonlinear fashion.

In this paper, we first show that the regular solutions of compressible Euler equations in<i>R</i>³with damping will not be global if the initial density function has compact support. This implies that<i>c</i>²cannot be smooth across the boundary<i></i>separating the gas and the vacuum after a finite time, where<i>c</i>is the speed of sound. Then we study the local existence of solutions for isentropic gas flow in<i>R</i>when<i>c</i>, 0&lt;<i></i>1, is smooth across<i></i>, using the energy method and the characteristics method.

What is the shape of a uniformly massive object that generates a gravitational potential equivalent to that of two equal point-masses? If the weight of each point-mass is sufficiently small compared to the distance between the points then the answer is a pair of balls of equal radius, one centered at each of the two points, but otherwise it is a certain domain of revolution about the axis passing through the two points. The existence and uniqueness of such a domain is known, but an explicit parameterization is known only in the plane where the region is referred to as a Neumann oval. We construct a four-dimensional “Neumann ovaloid”, solving explicitly this inverse potential problem.

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.

This paper is devoted to a functional analytic approach to the subelliptic oblique derivative problem for the usual Laplacian with a complex parameter λ. We solve the long-standing open problem of the asymptotic eigenvalue distribution for the homogeneous oblique derivative problem when |λ| tends to ∞. We prove the spectral properties of the closed realization of the Laplacian similar to the elliptic (non-degenerate) case. In the proof we make use of Boutet de Monvel calculus in order to study the resolvents and their adjoints in the framework of L2 Sobolev spaces.