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.

For the Boltzmann equation with an external potential force depending only on the space variables, there is a family of stationary solutions, which are local Maxwellians with space dependent density, zero velocity and constant temperature. In this paper, we will study the nonlinear stability of these stationary solutions by using the energy method. The analysis combines the analytic techniques used for the conservation laws using the fluid-type system derived from the Boltzmann equation (cf. [14]) and the dissipative effects on the fluid and non-fluid components of the Boltzmann equation through the celebrated H-theorem. To our knowledge, this is the first result on the global classical solutions to the Boltzmann equation with external force and non-trivial large time behavior in the whole space.

In this paper we study the distribution of scattering resonances for a multi-dimensional semi-classical Schrödinger operator, associated to a potential well in an island at energies close to the maximal one that limits the separation of the well and the surrounding sea.

Let G = (V, E) be a locally finite graph, whose measure μ(x) has positive lower bound, and Δ be the usual graph Laplacian. Applying the mountain-pass theorem due to Ambrosetti and Rabinowitz (1973), we establish existence results for some nonlinear equations, namely Δu + hu = f(x, u), x ∈ V. In particular, we prove that if h and f satisfy certain assumptions, then the above-mentioned equation has strictly positive solutions. Also, we consider existence of positive solutions of the perturbed equation Δu + hu = f(x, u) + ϵg. Similar problems have been extensively studied on the Euclidean space as well as on Riemannian manifolds.

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.