In this paper, we introduce a new Glimm functional for general systems of hyperbolic conservation laws. This new functional is consistent with the classical Glimm functional for the case when each characteristic field is either genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate, so that it can be viewed as optimal in some sense. With this new functional, the consistency of the Glimm scheme is proved clearly for general systems. Moreover, the convergence rate of the Glimm scheme is shown to be the same as the one obtained in Bressan, Marson (Arch Ration Mech Anal 142(2):155176, 1998) for systems with each characteristic field being genuinely nonlinear or linearly degenerate.

In the paper, we study the Prandtl system with initial data admitting non-degenerate critical points. For any index \sigma\in [3/2, 2], we obtain the local in time well-posedness in the space of Gevrey class \sigma\in [3/2, 2], in the tangential variable and Sobolev class in the normal variable so that the monotonicity condition on the tangential velocity is not needed to overcome the loss of tangential derivative. This answers the open question raised in the paper of D. Grard-Varet and N. Masmoudi [{\it Ann. Sci. c. Norm. Supr}.(4) 48 (2015), no. 6, 1273-1325], in which the case \sigma\in [3/2, 2], is solved.

In this paper we prove an existence theorem of global smooth solutions for the Cauchy problem of a class of quasilinear hyperbolic systems with nonlinear dissipative terms under the assumption that only the <i>C</i>⁰-norm of the initial data is sufficiently small, while the <i>C</i>¹-norm of the initial data can be large. The analysis is based on <i>a priori</i> estimates, which are obtained by a generalised Lax transformation.

We justify the smoothing effect for measure valued solutions to the space homogeneous Boltzmann equation of Maxwellian type cross sections. This is the first rigorous proof of the smoothing effect for any measure valued initial data except the single Dirac mass, which gives the optimal description on the regularity of solutions for positive time, caused by the singularity in the cross section. The main new ingredient in the proof is the introduction of a time degenerate coercivity estimate by using the microlocal analysis.

To study the non-linear stability of a non-trivial profile for a multi-dimensional systems of gas dynamics, the combination of the Green function on estimating the lower order derivatives and the energy method for the higher order derivatives is shown to be not only useful but sometimes maybe also essential. In this paper, we study the stability of a planar diffusion wave for the isentropic Euler equations with damping in two-dimensional space. By introducing an approximate Green function for the linearized equations around the planar diffusion wave and by applying the energy method, we prove the global existence and the L 2 convergence rate of the solution when the initial data is a small perturbation of the planar diffusion wave. The decay rates of the perturbation and its lower order spatial derivatives obtained are optimal in the L 2 norm. Furthermore, the constructed approximate Green function in this paper can be