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.

We study the large-time asymptotic shock-front speed in an inviscid Burgers equation with a spatially random flux function. This equation is a prototype for a class of scalar conservation laws with spatial random coefficients such as the well-known BuckleyLeverett equation for two-phase flows, and the contaminant transport equation in groundwater flows. The initial condition is a shock located at the origin (the indicator function of the negative real line). We first regularize the equation by a special random viscous term so that the resulting equation can be solved explicitly by a ColeHopf formula. Using the invariance principle of the underlying random processes and the Laplace method, we prove that for large times the solutions behave like fronts moving at averaged constant speeds in the sense of distribution. However, the front locations are random, and we show explicitly the probability of observing the

Based on the existence theory on the Boltzmann equation with external forces in infinite vacuum, in this paper, we will study the L1 and BV-type stability of the classical solutions for small initial data. The stability results generalize those for the Boltzmann equation without force to the case with external force. In particular, we show that the stability can be established for the soft potentials directly, while the stability for the hard potentials and hard sphere model is obtained through the construction of some nonlinear functionals. The functionals thus constructed generalize those constructed in [S.-Y. Ha, Nonlinear functionals of the Boltzmann equation and uniform stability estimates, J. Differential Equations 215 (2005) 178205] for the case without force to capture the effect of the force term on the time evolution of the solutions. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we introduce a new Glimm functional for general systems of hyperbolic conservation laws. This new functional is consistent with the classical Glimm functional for the case when each characteristic field is either genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate, so that it can be viewed as optimal in some sense. With this new functional, the consistency of the Glimm scheme is proved clearly for general systems. Moreover, the convergence rate of the Glimm scheme is shown to be the same as the one obtained in Bressan, Marson (Arch Ration Mech Anal 142(2):155176, 1998) for systems with each characteristic field being genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate.

In this paper, we establish the optimal error estimate of the particle method for a family of nonlinear evolutionary partial differential equations, or the so-called b-equation. The b-equation, including the Camassa-Holm equation and the Degasperis-Procesi equation, has many applications in diverse scientific fields. The particle method is an approximation of the b-equation in Lagrangian representation. We also prove short-time existence, uniqueness and regularity of the Lagrangian representation of the b-equation.