For a bipolar hydrodynamic model of semiconductors in the form of EulerPoisson equations with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, in this paper we first heuristically analyze the most probable asymptotic profile (the so-called diffusion waves) and then prove this long-time behavior rigorously. For this, we construct correction functions to show the convergence of the original solution to the diffusion wave with optimal convergence rates by the energy method. Moreover, in the case with Dirichlet boundary condition, when the initial perturbation is in some weighted L^1 space, a faster and optimal convergence rate is also given.

In this paper, we give an instability criterion for the Prandtl equations in three-dimensional space, which shows that the monotonicity condition on tangential velocity fields is not sufficient for the well-posedness of the three-dimensional Prandtl equations, in contrast to the classical well-posedness theory of the two-dimensional Prandtl equations under the Oleinik monotonicity assumption. Both linear stability and nonlinear stability are considered. This criterion shows that the monotonic shear flow is linearly stable for the three-dimensional Prandtl equations if and only if the tangential velocity field direction is invariant with respect to the normal variable, and this result is an exact complement to our recent work (A well-posedness theory for the Prandtl equations in three space variables. arXiv:1405.5308 , 2014) on the well-posedness theory for the three-dimensional Prandtl

This paper is about the propagation of the singularities in the solutions to the Cauchy problem of the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation with angular cutoff assumption. It is motivated by the work of BoudinDesvillettes on the propagation of singularities in solutions near vacuum. It shows that for the solution near a global Maxwellian, singularities in the initial data propagate like the free transportation. Precisely, the solution is the sum of two parts in which one keeps the singularities of the initial data and the other one is regular with locally bounded derivatives of fractional order in some Sobolev space. In addition, the dependence of the regularity on the cross-section is also given.

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.

In this paper, we study the nonlinear stability of travelling wave solutions with shock profile for a relaxation model with a nonconvex flux, which is proposed by Jin and Xin [<i>Comm. Pure Appl. Math.</i>, 48 (1995), pp. 555--563] to approximate an original hyperbolic system numerically under the subcharacteristic condition introduced by T. P. Liu [<i>Comm. Math. Phys.</i>, 108 (1987), pp. 153--175]. The travelling wave solutions with strong shock profile are shown to be asymptotically stable under small disturbances with integral zero using an elementary but technical energy method. Proofs involve detailed study of the error equation for disturbances using the same weight function introduced in [<i>Comm. Math. Phys.</i>, 165 (1994), pp. 83--96].