Well-posedness and qualitative behaviour of a semi-linear parabolic Cauchy problem arising from a generic model for fractional-order autocatalysis

In this paper, we examine a semi-linear parabolic Cauchy problem with non-Lipschitz nonlinearity which arises as a generic form in a significant number of applications. Specifically, we obtain a well-posedness result and examine the qualitative structure of the solution in detail. The standard classical approach to establishing well-posedness is precluded owing to the lack of Lipschitz continuity for the nonlinearity. Here, existence and uniqueness of solutions is established via the recently developed generic approach to this class of problem (Meyer & Needham 2015 The Cauchy problem for non-Lipschitz semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations. London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series, vol. 419) which examines the difference of the maximal and minimal solutions to the problem. From this uniqueness result, the approach of Meyer & Needham allows for development of a comparison result which is then used to exhibit global continuous dependence of solutions to the problem on a suitable initial dataset. The comparison and continuous dependence results obtained here are novel to this class of problem. This class of problem arises specifically in the study of a one-step autocatalytic reaction, which is schematically given by A→B at rate a(p)b(q) (where a and b are the concentrations of A and B, respectively, with 0<p,q<1) and well-posedness for this problem has been lacking up to the present

Classical well-posedness in dispersive equations with nonlinearities of mild regularity, and a composition theorem in Besov spaces

For both localized and periodic initial data, we prove local existence in classical energy space $H^s, s>\frac{3}{2}$, for a class of dispersive equations $u_{t}+(n(u))_{x}+Lu_{x}=0$ with nonlinearities of mild regularity. Our results are valid for symmetric Fourier multiplier operators $L$ whose symbol is of temperate growth, and $n(\cdot)$ in local Sobolev space $H^{s+2}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R})$. In particular, the results include non-smooth and exponentially growing nonlinearities. Our proof is based on a combination of semi-group methods and a new composition result for Besov spaces. In particular, we extend a previous result for Nemytskii operators on Besov spaces on $\mathbb{R}$ to the periodic setting by using the difference-derivative characterization of Besov spaces

Outer boundary conditions for Einstein's field equations in harmonic coordinates

We analyze Einstein's vacuum field equations in generalized harmonic coordinates on a compact spatial domain with boundaries. We specify a class of boundary conditions, which is constraint-preserving and sufficiently general to include recent proposals for reducing the amount of spurious reflections of gravitational radiation. In particular, our class comprises the boundary conditions recently proposed by Kreiss and Winicour, a geometric modification thereof, the freezing-Ψ0 boundary condition and the hierarchy of absorbing boundary conditions introduced by Buchman and Sarbach. Using the recent technique developed by Kreiss and Winicour based on an appropriate reduction to a pseudo-differential first-order system, we prove well posedness of the resulting initial-boundary value problem in the frozen coefficient approximation. In view of the theory of pseudo-differential operators, it is expected that the full nonlinear problem is also well posed. Furthermore, we implement some of our boundary conditions numerically and study their effectiveness in a test problem consisting of a perturbed Schwarzschild black hole

Mixed Hyperbolic - Second-Order Parabolic Formulations of General Relativity

Two new formulations of general relativity are introduced. The first one is a parabolization of the Arnowitt, Deser, Misner (ADM) formulation and is derived by addition of combinations of the constraints and their derivatives to the right-hand-side of the ADM evolution equations. The desirable property of this modification is that it turns the surface of constraints into a local attractor because the constraint propagation equations become second-order parabolic independently of the gauge conditions employed. This system may be classified as mixed hyperbolic - second-order parabolic. The second formulation is a parabolization of the Kidder, Scheel, Teukolsky formulation and is a manifestly mixed strongly hyperbolic - second-order parabolic set of equations, bearing thus resemblance to the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. As a first test, a stability analysis of flat space is carried out and it is shown that the first modification exponentially damps and smoothes all constraint violating modes. These systems provide a new basis for constructing schemes for long-term and stable numerical integration of the Einstein field equations.Comment: 19 pages, two column, references added, two proofs of well-posedness added, content changed to agree with submitted version to PR

Local ill-posedness of the 1D Zakharov system

Ginibre-Tsutsumi-Velo (1997) proved local well-posedness for the Zakharov system for any dimension $d$, in the inhomogeneous Sobolev spaces $(u,n)\in H^k(\mathbb{R}^d)\times H^s(\mathbb{R}^d)$ for a range of exponents $k$, $s$ depending on $d$. Here we restrict to dimension $d=1$ and present a few results establishing local ill-posedness for exponent pairs $(k,s)$ outside of the well-posedness regime. The techniques employed are rooted in the work of Bourgain (1993), Birnir-Kenig-Ponce-Svanstedt-Vega (1996), and Christ-Colliander-Tao (2003) applied to the nonlinear Schroedinger equation

Nonlinear wave equations

The analysis of nonlinear wave equations has experienced a dramatic growth in the last ten years or so. The key factor in this has been the transition from linear analysis, first to the study of bilinear and multilinear wave interactions, useful in the analysis of semilinear equations, and next to the study of nonlinear wave interactions, arising in fully nonlinear equations. The dispersion phenomena plays a crucial role in these problems. The purpose of this article is to highlight a few recent ideas and results, as well as to present some open problems and possible future directions in this field