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 investigate the fractional Schrödinger equation with a periodic PT-symmetric potential. In the inverse space, the problem transfers into a first-order nonlocal frequency-delay partial differential equation. We show that at a critical point, the band structure becomes linear and symmetric in the one-dimensional case, which results in a nondiffracting propagation and conical diffraction of input beams. If only one channel in the periodic potential is excited, adjacent channels become uniformly excited along the propagation direction, which can be used to generate laser beams of high power and narrow width. In the two-dimensional case, there appears conical diffraction that depends on the competition between the fractional Laplacian operator and the PT-symmetric potential. This investigation may find applications in novel on-chip optical devices.

We study the front dynamics of solutions of the initial value problem of the Burgers equation with initial data being the viscous shock front plus the white noise perturbation. In the sense of distribution, the solutions propagate with the same speed as the unperturbed front, however, the front location is random and satisfies a central limit theorem with the variance proportional to the time<i>t</i>, as<i>t</i> goes to infinity. With probability arbitrarily close to one, the front width is<i>O</i>(1) for large time.

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.

Since the work by Guo (Invent Math 153(3):593630, 2003), it has remained an open problem to establish the global existence of perturbative classical solutions around a global Maxwellian to the VlasovMaxwellBoltzmann system with the whole range of soft potentials. This is mainly due to the complex structure of the system, in particular, the degenerate dissipation at large velocity, the velocity-growth of the nonlinear term induced by the Lorentz force, and the regularity-loss of the electromagnetic fields. This paper solves this problem in the whole space provided that initial perturbation has sufficient regularity and velocity-integrability.