In this paper we study the asymptotic nonlinear stability of discrete shocks for the Lax-Friedrichs scheme for approximating general m×m systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws. It is shown that weak single discrete shocks for such a scheme are nonlinearly stable in the Lp-norm for all p ≧ 1, provided that the sums of the initial perturbations equal zero. These results should shed light on the convergence of the numerical solution constructed by the Lax-Friedrichs scheme for the single-shock solution of system of hyperbolic conservation laws. If the Riemann solution corresponding to the given far-field states is a superposition of m single shocks from each characteristic family, we show that the corresponding multiple discrete shocks are nonlinearly stable in Lp (P ≧ 2). These results are proved by using both a weighted estimate and a characteristic energy method based on the internal structures of the discrete shocks and the essential monotonicity of the Lax-Friedrichs scheme.

Abstract We study a class of fourth order nonlinear parabolic equations which include the thin-film equation and the quantum drift-diffusion model as special cases. We investigate these equations by first developing functional inequalities of the type $$ \int_\Omega u^{2\gamma-\alpha-\beta}\Delta\ua\Delta\ub dx \geq c\int_\Omega|\Delta \ur |^2dx, $$ which seem to be of interest on their own right.

In this paper, we study the fluid-dynamic limit for the one-dimensional Broadwell model of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation in the presence of boundaries. We consider an analogue of Maxwell's diffusive and reflective boundary conditions. The boundary layers can be classified as either compressive or expansive in terms of the associated characteristic fields. We show that both expansive and compressive boundary layers (before detachment) are nonlinearly stable and that the layer effects are localized so that the fluid dynamic approximation is valid away from the boundary. We also show that the same conclusion holds for short time without the structural conditions on the boundary layers. A rigorous estimate for the distance between the kinetic solution and the fluid-dynamic solution in terms of the mean-free path in theL∞-norm is obtained provided that the interior fluid flow is smooth. The rate of convergence is optimal.

The uniqueness of positive solutions to some semilinear elliptic systems with variational structure arising from mathematical physics is proved. The key ingredient of the proof is the oscillatory behavior of solutions to linearized equations for cooperative semilinear elliptic systems of two equations on one-dimensional domains, and it is shown that the stability of the positive solutions for such semilinear system is closely related to the oscillatory behavior.

We prove the existence of multidimensional traveling-wave solutions to the scalar equation for the transport of solutes (contaminants) with nonlinear adsorption and spatially periodic convection-diffusion-adsorption coefficients under the assumption that the nonlinear adsorption function satisfies the Lax and Oleinik entropy conditions. In the nondegenerate case, we also prove the uniqueness of the traveling waves. These traveling waves are analogues of viscous shock profiles. They propagate with effective speeds that depend on the periodic porous media only up to their mean states, and are given by an averaged Rankine-Hugoniot relation. This is a direct consequence of the fact that the transport equation is in conservation form. We use the sliding domain method, the continuation method, spectral theory, maximum principles, and a priori estimates. In the degenerate case, the traveling waves are weak