A theory of L1L^1-dissipative solvers for scalar conservation laws with discontinuous flux

We propose a general framework for the study of $L^1$ contractive semigroups of solutions to conservation laws with discontinuous flux. Developing the ideas of a number of preceding works we claim that the whole admissibility issue is reduced to the selection of a family of "elementary solutions", which are certain piecewise constant stationary weak solutions. We refer to such a family as a "germ". It is well known that (CL) admits many different $L^1$ contractive semigroups, some of which reflects different physical applications. We revisit a number of the existing admissibility (or entropy) conditions and identify the germs that underly these conditions. We devote specific attention to the anishing viscosity" germ, which is a way to express the "$\Gamma$-condition" of Diehl. For any given germ, we formulate "germ-based" admissibility conditions in the form of a trace condition on the flux discontinuity line $x=0$ (in the spirit of Vol'pert) and in the form of a family of global entropy inequalities (following Kruzhkov and Carrillo). We characterize those germs that lead to the $L^1$-contraction property for the associated admissible solutions. Our approach offers a streamlined and unifying perspective on many of the known entropy conditions, making it possible to recover earlier uniqueness results under weaker conditions than before, and to provide new results for other less studied problems. Several strategies for proving the existence of admissible solutions are discussed, and existence results are given for fluxes satisfying some additional conditions. These are based on convergence results either for the vanishing viscosity method (with standard viscosity or with specific viscosities "adapted" to the choice of a germ), or for specific germ-adapted finite volume schemes

Exponential decay towards equilibrium and global classical solutions for nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems

We consider a system of reaction-diffusion equations describing the reversible reaction of two species $\mathcal{U}, \mathcal{V}$ forming a third species $\mathcal{W}$ and vice versa according to mass action law kinetics with arbitrary stochiometric coefficients (equal or larger than one). Firstly, we prove existence of global classical solutions via improved duality estimates under the assumption that one of the diffusion coefficients of $\mathcal{U}$ or $\mathcal{V}$ is sufficiently close to the diffusion coefficient of $\mathcal{W}$. Secondly, we derive an entropy entropy-dissipation estimate, that is a functional inequality, which applied to global solutions of these reaction-diffusion system proves exponential convergence to equilibrium with explicit rates and constants.Comment: 24 page

Local and Global Well-Posedness for Aggregation Equations and Patlak-Keller-Segel Models with Degenerate Diffusion

Recently, there has been a wide interest in the study of aggregation equations and Patlak-Keller-Segel (PKS) models for chemotaxis with degenerate diffusion. The focus of this paper is the unification and generalization of the well-posedness theory of these models. We prove local well-posedness on bounded domains for dimensions $d\geq 2$ and in all of space for $d\geq 3$, the uniqueness being a result previously not known for PKS with degenerate diffusion. We generalize the notion of criticality for PKS and show that subcritical problems are globally well-posed. For a fairly general class of problems, we prove the existence of a critical mass which sharply divides the possibility of finite time blow up and global existence. Moreover, we compute the critical mass for fully general problems and show that solutions with smaller mass exists globally. For a class of supercritical problems we prove finite time blow up is possible for initial data of arbitrary mass.Comment: 31 page

Well-posedness and exponential equilibration of a volume-surface reaction-diffusion system with nonlinear boundary coupling

We consider a model system consisting of two reaction-diffusion equations, where one species diffuses in a volume while the other species diffuses on the surface which surrounds the volume. The two equations are coupled via a nonlinear reversible Robin-type boundary condition for the volume species and a matching reversible source term for the boundary species. As a consequence of the coupling, the total mass of the two species is conserved. The considered system is motivated for instance by models for asymmetric stem cell division. Firstly we prove the existence of a unique weak solution via an iterative method of converging upper and lower solutions to overcome the difficulties of the nonlinear boundary terms. Secondly, our main result shows explicit exponential convergence to equilibrium via an entropy method after deriving a suitable entropy entropy-dissipation estimate for the considered nonlinear volume-surface reaction-diffusion system.Comment: 31 page

Global Entropy Solutions to the Gas Flow in General Nozzle

We are concerned with the global existence of entropy solutions for the compressible Euler equations describing the gas flow in a nozzle with general cross-sectional area, for both isentropic and isothermal fluids. New viscosities are delicately designed to obtain the uniform bound of approximate solutions. The vanishing viscosity method and compensated compactness framework are used to prove the convergence of approximate solutions. Moreover, the entropy solutions for both cases are uniformly bounded independent of time. No smallness condition is assumed on initial data. The techniques developed here can be applied to compressible Euler equations with general source terms