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We prove the global existence and uniqueness of classical solutions around an equilibrium to the Boltzmann equation without angular cutoff in some Sobolev spaces. In addition, the solutions thus obtained are shown to be non-negative and <i>C</i>  in all variables for any positive time. In this paper, we study the Maxwellian molecule type collision operator with mild singularity. One of the key observations is the introduction of a new important norm related to the singular behavior of the cross section in the collision operator. This norm captures the essential properties of the singularity and yields precisely the dissipation of the linearized collision operator through the celebrated H-theorem.

In this paper, we give a condition on the bicharacteristic which guarantees the global existence of the mild solution to the Boltzmann equation with an external force for the hard-sphere model and potentials with angular cutoff in infinite vacuum. This generalizes the previous results to the case when the force can have arbitrary strength. The constructive condition on the bicharacteristic is used to obtain the pointwise estimates on the collision operator so that the global existence comes from the contraction mapping theorem.

We give an elementary proof of the convergence of the point vortex method (PVM) to a classical weak solution for the two-dimensional incompressible Euler equations with initial vorticity being a finite Radon measure of distinguished sign and the initial velocity of locally bounded energy. This includes the important example of vortex sheets, which exhibits the classical Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. A surprise fact is that although the velocity fields generated by the point vortex method do not have bounded local kinetic energy, the limiting velocity field is shown to have a bounded local kinetic energy.

The purpose of this research monograph is to survey some recent developments in the analysis of shock reflection-diffraction, to present our original mathematical proofs of von Neumann’s conjectures for potential flow, to collect most of the related results and new techniques in the analysis of partial differential equations achieved in the last decades, and to discuss a set of fundamental open problems relevant to the directions of future research in this and related areas.