This article is concerned with the problem of determining an unknown source of non-potential, external time-dependent perturbations of an incompressible fluid from large-scale observations on the flow field. A relaxation-based approach is proposed for accomplishing this, which makes use of a nonlinear property of the equations of motions to asymptotically enslave small scales to large scales. In particular, an algorithm is introduced that systematically produces approximations of the flow field on the unobserved scales in order to generate an approximation to the unknown force; the process is then repeated to generate an improved approximation of the unobserved scales, and so on. A mathematical proof of convergence of this algorithm is established in the context of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations with periodic boundary conditions under the assumption that the force belongs to the observational subspace of phase space; at each stage in the algorithm, it is shown that the model error, represented as the difference between the approximating and true force, asymptotically decreases to zero in a geometric fashion provided that sufficiently many scales are observed and certain parameters of the algorithm are appropriately tuned.

Being able to characterise objects at low frequencies, but in situations where the modelling error in the eddy current approximation of the Maxwell system becomes large, is important for improving current metal detection technologies. Importantly, the modelling error becomes large as the frequency increases, but the accuracy of the eddy current model also depends on the object topology and on its materials, with the error being much larger for certain geometries compared to others of the same size and materials. Additionally, the eddy current model breaks down at much smaller frequencies for highly magnetic conducting materials compared to non-permeable objects (with similar conductivities, sizes and shapes) and, hence, characterising small magnetic objects made of permeable materials using the eddy current at typical frequencies of operation for a metal detector is not always possible. To address this, we derive a new asymptotic expansion for permeable highly conducting objects that is valid for small objects and holds not only for frequencies where the eddy current model is valid but also for situations where the eddy current modelling error becomes large and applying the eddy approximation would be invalid. The leading-order term we derive leads to new forms of object characterisations in terms of polarizability tensor object descriptions where the coefficients can be obtained from solving vectorial transmission problems. We expect these new characterisations to be important when considering objects at greater stand-off distance from the coils, which is important for safety critical applications, such as the identification of landmines, unexploded ordnance and concealed weapons. We also expect our results to be important when characterising artefacts of archaeological and forensic significance at greater depths than the eddy current model allows and to have further applications parking sensors and improving the detection of hidden, out-of-sight, metallic objects.

In this article, we are concerned with the tempered fractional parabolic problem

$$ \begin{align*}\frac{\partial u}{\partial t}(x, t)-\left(\Delta+\lambda\right)^{\frac{\alpha}{2}} u(x, t)=f(u(x, t)), \end{align*} $$

where $-\left (\Delta +\lambda \right )^{\frac {\alpha }{2}}$ is a tempered fractional operator with $\alpha \in (0,2)$ and $\lambda $ is a sufficiently small positive constant. We first establish maximum principle principles for problems involving tempered fractional parabolic operators. And then, we develop the direct sliding methods for the tempered fractional parabolic problem, and discuss how they can be used to establish monotonicity results of solutions to the tempered fractional parabolic problem in various domains. We believe that our theory and methods can be conveniently applied to study parabolic problems involving other nonlocal operators.

Two-scale models pose a promising approach in simulating reactive flow and transport in evolving porous media. Classically, homogenised flow and transport equations are solved on the macroscopic scale, while effective parameters are obtained from auxiliary cell problems on possibly evolving reference geometries (micro-scale). Despite their perspective success in rendering lab/field-scale simulations computationally feasible, analytic results regarding the arising two-scale bilaterally coupled system often restrict to simplified models. In this paper, we first derive smooth dependence results concerning the partial coupling from the underlying geometry to macroscopic quantities. Therefore, alterations of the representative fluid domain are described by smooth paths of diffeomorphisms. Exploiting the gained regularity of the effective space- and time-dependent macroscopic coefficients, we present local-in-time existence results for strong solutions to the partially coupled micro–macro system using fixed-point arguments. What is more, we extend our results to the bilaterally coupled diffusive transport model including a level-set description of the evolving geometry.

Narrow escape and narrow capture problems which describe the average times required to stop the motion of a randomly travelling particle within a domain have applications in various areas of science. While for general domains, it is known how the escape time decreases with the increase of the trap sizes, for some specific 2D and 3D domains, higher-order asymptotic formulas have been established, providing the dependence of the escape time on the sizes and locations of the traps. Such results allow the use of global optimisation to seek trap arrangements that minimise average escape times. In a recent paper (Iyaniwura (2021) SIAM Rev. 63(3), 525–555), an explicit size- and trap location-dependent expansion of the average mean first passage time (MFPT) in a 2D elliptic domain was derived. The goal of this work is to systematically seek global minima of MFPT for $1\leq N\leq 50$ traps in elliptic domains using global optimisation techniques and compare the corresponding putative optimal trap arrangements for different values of the domain eccentricity. Further, an asymptotic formula for the average MFPT in elliptic domains with N circular traps of arbitrary sizes is derived, and sample optimal configurations involving non-equal traps are computed.

This is the second part of our study on the spatially heterogeneous predator–prey model where the interaction is governed by a Crowley–Martin type functional response. In part I, we have proved that when the predator competition is strong (i.e. k is large), the model has at most one positive steady-state solution for any $\mu \in \mathbb {R}$, moreover it is globally asymptotically stable for any $\mu >0$. This part is denoted to study the effect of saturation. Our result shows that the large saturation coefficient (i.e. large m) can not only lead to the uniqueness of positive solutions, but also lead to the multiplicity of positive solutions, moreover the stability of the corresponding positive solutions is also completely obtained. This work can be regarded as a supplement of Ref. [10].

The aim of this paper is to provide and numerically test in the presence of measurement noise a procedure for target classification in wave imaging based on comparing frequency-dependent distribution descriptors with precomputed ones in a dictionary of learned distributions. Distribution descriptors for inhomogeneous objects are obtained from the scattering coefficients. First, we extract the scattering coefficients of the (inhomogeneous) target from the perturbation of the reflected waves. Then, for a collection of inhomogeneous targets, we build a frequency-dependent dictionary of distribution descriptors and use a matching algorithm in order to identify a target from the dictionary up to some translation, rotation and scaling.

The linear Schrödinger equation with piecewise constant potential in one spatial dimension is a well-studied textbook problem. It is one of only a few solvable models in quantum mechanics and shares many qualitative features with physically important models. In examples such as ‘particle in a box’ and tunnelling, attention is restricted to the time-independent Schrödinger equation. This paper combines the unified transform method and recent insights for interface problems to present fully explicit solutions for the time-dependent problem.

This review paper is concerned with the stability analysis of the continuity equation in the DiPerna–Lions setting in which the advecting velocity field is Sobolev regular. Quantitative estimates for the equation were derived only recently, but optimality was not discussed. We revisit the results from our 2017 paper, compare the new estimates with previously known estimates for Lagrangian flows and demonstrate how these can be applied to produce optimal bounds in applications from physics, engineering and numerical analysis.

We study classical solutions of the Cauchy problem for a class of non-Lipschitz semilinear parabolic partial differential equations in one spatial dimension with sufficiently smooth initial data. When the nonlinearity is Lipschitz continuous, results concerning existence, uniqueness and continuous dependence on initial data are well established (see, for example, the texts of Friedman and Smoller and, in the context of the present paper, see also Meyer), as are the associated results concerning Hadamard well-posedness. We consider the situations when the nonlinearity is Hölder continuous and when the nonlinearity is upper Lipschitz continuous. Finally, we consider the situation when the nonlinearity is both Hölder continuous and upper Lipschitz continuous. In each case we focus upon the question of existence, uniqueness and continuous dependence on initial data, and thus upon aspects of Hadamard well-posedness.

In this paper we prove existence and qualitative properties of solutions for a nonlinear elliptic system arising from the coupling of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the Poisson equation. We use a contraction map approach together with estimates of the Bessel potential used to rewrite the system in an integral form.

In this paper, we study a system of thermoelasticity with a degenerate second-order operator in the heat equation. We analyze the evolution of the energy density of a family of solutions. We consider two cases: when the set of points where the ellipticity of the heat operator fails is included in a hypersurface and when it is an open set. In the first case, and under special assumptions, we prove that the evolution of the energy density is that of a damped wave equation: propagation along the rays of the geometric optic and damping according to a microlocal process. In the second case, we show that the energy density propagates along rays which are distortions of the rays of the geometric optic.

This paper deals with some non-linear initial-boundary value problems under homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, in which the solutions may blow up in finite time. Using a first-order differential inequality technique, lower bounds for blow-up time are determined.

We consider the system where p(x), q(x) ∈ C1(RN) are radial symmetric functions such that sup|∇ p(x)| < ∞, sup|∇ q(x)| < ∞ and 1 < inf p(x) ≤ sup p(x) < ∞, 1 < inf q(x) ≤ sup q(x) < ∞, where −Δp(x)u = −div(|∇u|p(x)−2∇u), −Δq(x)v = −div(|∇v|q(x)−2∇v), respectively are called p(x)-Laplacian and q(x)-Laplacian, λ1, λ2, μ1 and μ2 are positive parameters and Ω = B(0, R) ⊂ RN is a bounded radial symmetric domain, where R is sufficiently large. We prove the existence of a positive solution when for every M > 0, and . In particular, we do not assume any sign conditions on f(0), g(0), h(0) or γ(0).

We study the sharp threshold for blow-up and global existence and the instability of standing wave eiωtuω(x) for the Davey–Stewartson system

in ℝ3, where uω is a ground state. By constructing a type of cross-constrained variational problem and establishing so-called cross-invariant manifolds of the evolution flow, we derive a sharp criterion for global existence and blow-up of the solutions to (DS), which can be used to show that there exist blow-up solutions of (DS) arbitrarily close to the standing waves.

To a certain Volevič system of singular partial differential equations, called a Fuchsian system, all the solutions of the homogeneous equation in a complex domain are constructed and parametrized in a good way, without any assumption on the characteristic exponents.

We study singularities of solutions of the heat equation, that are not necessarily isolated but occur only in a single characteristic hyperplane. We prove a decomposition theorem for certain solutions on D+ = D ∩ (Rn × ]0. ∞[), for a suitable open set D, with singularities at compact subset K of Rn × {0}, in terms of Gauss-Weierstrass integrals. We use this to prove a representation theorem for certain solutions on D+, with singularities at K, as the sums of potentials and Dirichlet solutions. We also give conditions under which K is removable for solutions on D∖K.