In the long-time scale, we consider the fluid dynamical limits for the kinetic equations when the fluctuation is decomposed into even and odd parts with respect to the microscopic velocity with different scalings. It is shown that when the background state is an absolute Maxwellian, the limit fluid dynamical equations are the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with viscous heating. This is different from the case when the even and odd parts of the fluctuation have the same scaling where the standard incompressible Navier-Stokes equations without viscous heating are obtained. On the other hand, when the background is a local Maxwellian, it is shown that the above even-odd decomposition leads to a non-classical fluid dynamical system without viscous heating which has been used to describe the ghost effect in the kinetic theory. In addition, the above even-odd decomposition is justified rigorously for the Boltzmann equation for the former case when the background is an absolute Maxwellian.

In this survey paper, we will present the recent work on the study of the compressible fluids with vacuum states by illustrating its interesting and singular behavior through some systems of fluid dynamics, that is, Euler equations, EulerPoisson equations and NavierStokes equations. The main concern is the well-posedness of the problem when vacuum presents and the singular behavior of the solution near the interface separating the vacuum and the gas. Furthermore, the relation of the solutions for the gas dynamics with vacuum to those of the Boltzmann equation will also be discussed. In fact, the results obtained so far for vacuum states are far from being complete and satisfactory. Therefore, this paper can only be served as an introduction to this interesting field which has many open and challenging mathematical problems. Moreover, the problems considered here are limited to the author's interest and

METHODS AND APPLICATIONS OF ANALYSIS. 2000 International Press Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 495-510, September 2000 007

We study homogenization of the G-equation with a flow straining term (or the strain G-equation) in two dimensional periodic cellular flow. The strain G-equation is a highly non-coercive and non-convex level set HamiltonJacobi equation. The main objective is to investigate how the flow induced straining (the nonconvex term) influences front propagation as the flow intensity <i>A</i> increases. Three distinct regimes are identified. When <i>A</i> is below the critical level, homogenization holds and the turbulent flame speed <i>s</i> _T (effective Hamiltonian) is well-defined for any periodic flow with small divergence and is enhanced by the cellular flow as <i>s</i> _T <i>O</i>(<i>A</i>/log <i>A</i>). In the second regime where <i>A</i> is slightly above the critical value, homogenization breaks down, and <i>s</i> _T is not well-defined along any direction. Solutions become a mixture of a fast moving part and a stagnant part. When <i>A</i> is

We study wetting front (traveling wave) solutions to the Richards equation that describe the vertical infiltration of water through one-dimensional periodically layered unsaturated soils. We prove the existence, uniqueness, and large time asymptotic stability of the traveling wave solutions under prescribed flux boundary conditions and certain constitutive conditions. The traveling waves are connections between two steady state solutions that form near the ground surface and towards the underground water table. We found a closed form expression of the wave speed. The speed of a traveling wave is equal to the ratio of the flux difference and the difference of the spatial averages of the two steady states. We give both analytical and numerical examples showing that the wave speeds in the periodic soils can be larger or smaller than those in the homogeneous soils which have the same mean diffusivity and conductivity