The singular parabolic problem $u_t-\triangle u=\l{\frac{1+\d|\nabla u|^2}{(1-u)^2}}$ on a bounded domain $\O$ of $\Rn$ with Dirichlet boundary condition, models the Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device with fringing field. In this paper, we focus on the quenching behavior of the solution to this equation. We first show that there exists a critical value $\l_\d^*>0$ such that if $0<\l<\l_\d^*$, all solutions exist globally; while for $\l>\l_\d^*$, all the solution will quench in finite time. The estimate of the quenching time in terms of large voltage $\l$ is investigated. Furthermore, the quenching set is a compact subset of $\O$, provided $\O$ is a convex bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$. In particular, if the domain $\O$ is radially symmetric, then the origin is the only quenching point. We not only derive the one-side estimate of the quenching rate, but also further study the refined asymptotic behavior of the finite quenching solution.

The sine-Gordon (SG) equation and perturbed nonlinear Schrdinger (NLS) equations are studied numerically for modeling the propagation of two space dimensional (2D) localized pulses (the so-called <i>light bullets</i>) in nonlinear dispersive optical media. We begin with the (2+1) SG equation obtained as an asymptotic reduction in the two level dissipationless MaxwellBloch system, followed by the review on the perturbed NLS equation in 2D for SG pulse envelopes, which is globally well posed and has all the relevant higher order terms to regularize the collapse of standard critical (cubic focusing) NLS. The perturbed NLS is approximated by truncating the nonlinearity into finite higher order terms undergoing focusingdefocusing cycles. Efficient semi-implicit sine pseudospectral discretizations for SG and perturbed NLS are proposed with rigorous error estimates. Numerical comparison results between light bullet

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.

We prove local existence of smooth solutions for large data and global smooth solutions for small data to the incompressible, resitive, viscous or inviscid Hall-MHD model. We also show a Liouville theorem for the stationary solutions.

The time evolution of the distribution function for the charged particles in a dilute gas is governed by the VlasovPoissonBoltzmann system when the force is self-induced and its potential function satisfies the Poisson equation. In this paper, we give a satisfactory global existence theory of classical solutions to this system when the initial data is a small perturbation of a global Maxwellian. Moreover, the convergence rate in time to the global Maxwellian is also obtained through the energy method. The proof is based on the theory of compressible NavierStokes equations with forcing and the decomposition of the solutions to the Boltzmann equation with respect to the local Maxwellian introduced in [23] and elaborated in [31].