We studied coupled systems of the Fokker--Planck equation and the Navier--Stokes equation modeling the Hookean and the finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE)-type polymeric flows. We proved the continuous embedding and compact embedding theorems in weighted spaces that naturally arise from related entropy estimates. These embedding estimates are shown to be sharp. For the Hookean polymeric system with a center-of-mass diffusion and a superlinear spring potential, we proved the existence of a global weak solution. Moreover, we were able to tackle the FENE model with $L^2$ initial data for the polymer density instead of the $L^\infty$ counterpart in the literature.

. Let $u_t+f(u)_x=0$ be a strictly hyperbolic $n\times n$ system of conservation laws, each characteristic field being linearly degenerate or genuinely nonlinear. In this paper we explicitly define a functional $\Phi=\Phi(u,v)$, equivalent to the $\L^1$ distance, which is almost decreasing i.e., $$ \Phi\big( u(t),~v(t)\big)-\Phi\big( u(s),~v(s)\big)\leq \O(\ve)\cdot (t-s)\quad\hbox{for all}~~t&gt;s\geq 0,$$ for every pair of <i></i>-approximate solutions <i>u</i>, <i>v</i> with small total variation, generated by a wave front tracking algorithm. The small parameter <i></i> here controls the errors in the wave speeds, the maximum size of rarefaction fronts and the total strength of all non-physical waves in <i>u</i> and in <i>v</i>. From the above estimate, it follows that front-tracking approximations converge to a unique limit solution, depending Lipschitz continuously on the initial data, in the ${\vec L}^1$ norm. This provides a new proof of the existence of the

The dynamic stability of vortex solutions to the Ginzburg-Landau and nonlinear Schrdinger equations is the basic assumption of the asymptotic particle plus field description of interacting vortices. For the Ginzburg-Landau dynamics we prove that all vortices are asymptotically nonlinearly stable relative to small radial perturbations. Initially finite energy perturbations of vortices decay to zero in<i>L</i> ^<i>p</i>(²) spaces with an algebraic rate as time tends to infinity. We also prove that under general (nonradial) perturbations, the plus and minus one-vortices are linearly dynamically stable in<i>L</i> ²; the linearized operator has spectrum equal to (, 0] and generates a<i>C</i> ₀ semigroup of contractions on<i>L</i> ²(²). The nature of the zero energy point is clarified; it is<i>resonance</i>, a property related to the infinite energy of planar vortices. Our results on the linearized operator are also used to show that the plus and

We study the vanishing viscosity of the Navier-Stokes equations for interacting shocks. Given an entropy solution to <i>p</i>-system which consists of two different families of shocks interacting at some positive time, we show that such entropy solution is the vanishing viscosity limit of a family of global smooth solutions to the isentropic Navier-Stokes equations. The key point of the proofs is to derive the estimates separately before and after the interaction time and connect the incoming and outgoing viscous shock profiles.

The compressible Euler equations, which govern the gas flow surrounding a solid ball with mass M and frictional damping in n dimensions, t+(u)= 0,(u) t+ (u u)+ P ()=-Mx/| x| n-2u, where , u, P and M are the density, velocity, pressure and mass of the gas, respectively, n 3 is the dimension of x, and &gt; 0 is the frictional constant, are examined. The pressure is assumed to satisfy the law and 12 , K is a positive constant. The existence and non-existence of global smooth solutions are studied for the initial boundary problem of the Euler equations.