We study regularity criteria for weak solutions of the dissipative quasi-geostrophic equation (with dissipation ()^<i></i>/2, 0 &lt; <i></i> 1). We show in this paper that if , or with is a weak solution of the 2D quasi-geostrophic equation, then <i></i> is a classical solution in . This result improves our previous result in [18].

The nonlinear stability in the {L^p} -norm, p ≥ 1 , of stationary weak discrete shocks for the Lax-Friedrichs scheme approximating general m × m systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws is proved, provided that the summations of the initial perturbations equal zero. The result is proved by using both a weighted estimate and characteristic energy method based on the internal structures of the discrete shocks and the essential monotonicity of the Lax-Friedrichs scheme.

In this paper we study the existence assertion of the initial boundary value problem for the equation $\frac{\partial u}{\partial t} = \Delta e^{-\Delta u}$. This problem arises in the mathematical description of the evolution of crystal surfaces. Our investigations reveal that the exponent in the equation can have a singular part in the sense of the Lebesgue decomposition theorem, and the exponential nonlinearity somehow “cancels” it out. The net result is that we obtain a solution $u$ that satisfies the equation and the initial boundary conditions in the almost everywhere (a.e.) sense.

We perform a computationl study of front speeds of G-equation models in time dependent cellular flows. The G-equations arise in premixed turbulent combustion, and are Hamilton-Jacobi type level set partial differential equations (PDEs). The curvature-strain G-equations are also non-convex with degenerate diffusion. The computation is based on monotone finite difference discretization and weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) methods. We found that the large time front speeds lock into the frequency of time periodic cellular flows in curvature-strain G-equations similar to what occurs in the basic inviscid G-equation. However, such frequency locking phenomenon disappears in viscous G-equation, and in the inviscid G-equation if time periodic oscillation of the cellular flow is replaced by time stochastic oscillation.

In this paper, we consider the Boltzmann equation with soft potentials and prove the stability of a class of non-trivial profiles defined as some given local Maxwellians. The method consists of the analytic techniques for viscous conservation laws, properties of Burnett functions and energy method through the micro-macro decomposition of the Boltzmann equation. In particular, one of the key observations is a detailed analysis of the Burnett functions so that the energy estimates can be obtained in a clear way. As an application of the main results in this paper, we prove the large time nonlinear asymptotic stability of rarefaction waves to the Boltzmann equation with soft potentials.