Large-time behavior of solutions to the inflow problem of full compressible NavierStokes equations is investigated on the half line \mathbf{R}_+=(0,+\infty). The wave structure, which contains four wavesthe transonic (or degenerate) boundary layer solution, the 1-rarefaction wave, the viscous 2-contact wave, and the 3-rarefaction wave to the inflow problemis described, and the asymptotic stability of the superposition of the above four wave patterns to the inflow problem of full compressible NavierStokes equations is proven under some smallness conditions. The proof is given by the elementary energy analysis based on the underlying wave structure. The main points in the proof are the treatments of the degeneracies in the transonic boundary layer solution and the wave interactions in the superposition wave.

METHODS AND APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS. c 2009 International Press Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 507520, December 2009 006

In this paper, self-similarity is illustrated and compared in deterministic and stochastic dissipative systems. Examples are (1) deterministic self-similarity in reaction-diffusion system and Navier-Stokes equations, where solutions eventually decay to zero due to balance of diffusion (viscosity) and nonlinearity;(2) statistical self-similarity in randomly advected passive scalar model of Kraichnan where solutions undergo turbulent decay due to roughness of advection;(3) selfsimilarity in blowup of solutions of fourth order nonlinear parabolic equations of the Cahn-Hillard type. Problems for future research are mentioned, especially those where self-similarity is conjectured based on numerical evidence or physical grounds but mathematically open.

In this paper, we study the asymptotic stability of rarefaction waves for the compressible isentropic NavierStokes equations with density-dependent viscosity. First, a weak solution around a rarefaction wave to the Cauchy problem is constructed by approximating the system and regularizing the initial values which may contain vacuum states. Then some global in time estimates on the weak solution are obtained. Based on these uniform estimates, the vacuum states are shown to vanish in finite time and the weak solution we constructed becomes a unique strong one. Consequently, the stability of the rarefaction wave is proved in a weak sense. The theory holds for large-amplitudes rarefaction waves and arbitrary initial perturbations.

The existence of a discrete travelling wave is proved for the relaxing scheme. The main idea is to change the original scheme such that the resulting scheme is monotonic to which Jennings' result can be applied. The equivalence of the resulting scheme and the original one is shown when = 1 q. The u-component of the discrete travelling wave thus obtained is a discrete shock for a monotone conservative difference scheme, which approximates the corresponding conservation law.