We consider the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation without angular cutoff. We prove the existence and uniqueness of local classical solutions to the Cauchy problem, in the function space with Maxwellian type exponential decay with respect to the velocity variable. <b><i>To cite this article: R. Alexandre et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 347 (2009).</i></b>

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.

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.

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.

It is well-known that one-dimensional isentropic gas dynamics has two elementary waves, i.e., shock wave and rarefaction wave. Among the two waves, only the rarefaction wave can be connected to a vacuum. Given a rarefaction wave with one-side vacuum state to the compressible Euler equations, we can construct a sequence of solutions to one-dimensional compressible isentropic NavierStokes equations which converge to the above rarefaction wave with vacuum as the viscosity tends to zero. Moreover, the uniform convergence rate is obtained. The proof consists of a scaling argument and elementary energy analysis based on the underlying rarefaction wave structures.