The crossover between dispersion patterns has been frequently observed in various systems. Inspired by the pathway-based kinetic model for E. coli chemotaxis that accounts for the intracellular adaptation process and noise, we propose a kinetic model that can exhibit a crossover from ballistic transport to normal diffusion at the population level. At the particle level, this framework aligns with a stochastic individual-based model. Using numerical simulations and rigorous asymptotic analysis, we demonstrate this crossover both analytically and computationally. Notably, under suitable scaling, the model reveals two distinct limits in which the macroscopic densities exhibit either ballistic transport or normal diffusion.

We introduce an ℳ-operator approach to establish the uniqueness of continuous or bounded solutions for a broad class of Landau-type nonlinear kinetic equations. The specific ℳ-operator, originally developed in [3], acts as a negative fractional derivative in both spatial and velocity variables and interacts in a controllable manner with the kinetic transport operator. The novelty of this method is that it bypasses the need for bounds on the derivatives of the solution - an assumption typically required in uniqueness arguments for non-cutoff equations. As a result, the method enables working with solutions with low regularity.

We study the inverse problem of recovering the doping profile in the stationary Vlasov-Poisson equation, given the knowledge of the incoming and outgoing measurements at the boundary of the domain. This problem arises from identifying impurities in the semiconductor manufacturing. Our result states that, under suitable assumptions, the doping profile can be uniquely determined through an asymptotic formula of the electric field that it generates.

We establish a priori estimates showing the propagation and generation of L^p-norms for solutions to the non-cutoff spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with soft potentials. The singularity of the collision kernel is key to generate regularization and inhomogeneity in the energy estimates of the L^p-norms. Our result extends from the hard potential cases to the soft ones.

We establish a uniform-in-scaling error estimate for the asymptotic preserving (AP) scheme proposed by Xu and Wang [Commun. Math. Sci. 21 (2023), pp. 1–23] for the Lévy-Fokker-Planck (LFP) equation. The main difficulties stem not only from the interplay between the scaling and numerical parameters but also the slow decay of the tail of the equilibrium state. We tackle these problems by separating the parameter domain according to the relative size of the scaling parameter ε \varepsilon : in the regime where ε \varepsilon is large, we design a weighted norm to mitigate the issue caused by the fat tail, while in the regime where ε \varepsilon is small, we prove a strong convergence of LFP towards its fractional diffusion limit with an explicit convergence rate. This method extends the traditional AP estimates to cases where uniform bounds are unavailable. Our result applies to any dimension and to the whole span of the fractional power.

We show the unique reconstruction of the heat-reflection coefficients in a phonon transport equation. This is a mathematical model used to characterize the dynamics of heat-conducting phonons in multiple layers of media, commonly composed of metals and silicon. In experiments, the heat-reflection indices are inferred by measuring the temperature at the surface of the exterior metal after applying heat sources. In this article, we rigorously justify the unique reconstruction of these indices by using such procedures.

We investigate the zero-diffusion limit for both continuous and discrete aggregation-diffusion models over convex and bounded domains. Our approach relies on a coupling method connecting PDEs with their underlying SDEs. Compared with existing work, our result relaxes the regularity assumptions on the interaction and external potentials and improves the convergence rate (in terms of the diffusion coefficient). The particular rate we derive is shown to be consistent with numerical computations.

We investigate the numerical implementation of the limiting equation for the phonon transport equation in the small Knudsen number regime. The main contribution is that we derive the limiting equation that achieves the second order convergence, and provide a numerical recipe for computing the Robin coefficients. These coefficients are obtained by solving an auxiliary half-space equation. Numerically the half-space equation is solved by a spectral method that relies on the even-odd decomposition to eliminate corner-point singularity. Numerical evidences will be presented to justify the second order asymptotic convergence rate.

The Boltzmann equation without an angular cutoff is considered when the initial data is a small perturbation of a global Maxwellian with an algebraic decay in the velocity variable. A well-posedness theory in the perturbative framework is obtained for both mild and strong angular singularities by combining three ingredients: the moment propagation, the spectral gap of the linearized operator, and the regularizing effect of the linearized operator when the initial data is in a Sobolev space with a negative index. A carefully designed pseudo-differential operator plays an central role in capturing the regularizing effect. Moreover, some intrinsic symmetry with respect to the collision operator and an intrinsic functional in the coercivity estimate are essentially used in the commutator estimates for the collision operator with velocity weights.

In this paper we give an elementary proof of the uniqueness of solutions to a gas-disk interaction system with diffusive boundary condition. The existence of near-equilibrium solutions for this type of system with various boundary conditions has been extensively studied in Aoki et al. (ESAIM:M2AN 42:26–275, 2008), Caprino et al. (Commun Math Phys 264: 167–189, 2006; Math Models Methods Appl Sci 17(9):1369–1403, 2007), Cavallaro (Rend Mat Ser VII 27:123–145, 2007), Chen and Strauss (Arch Ration Mech Anal 211:879–910, 2014; Commun Math Phys 338:139–168, 2015), Koike (J Stat Phys 172:795–823, 2018a; Kinet. Relat. Model 11(3): 441–467, 2018b) and Sisti and Ricciuti (SIAM J Math Anal 46(6):3579–3611, 2014). However, the uniqueness has been an open problem, even for solutions near equilibrium. Our work gives the first rigorous proof of the uniqueness among solutions that are only required to be locally Lipschitz; in particular, it holds for solutions far from equilibrium states.

We show that the inverse problems for a class of kinetic equations can be solved by classical tools in PDE analysis including energy estimates and the celebrated averaging lemma. Using these tools, we give a unified framework for the reconstruction of the absorption coefficient for transport equations in the subcritical and critical regimes. Moreover, we apply this framework to obtain, to the best of our knowledge, the first result in a nonlinear setting. We also extend the result of recovering the scattering coefficient in [14] from 3D to 2D convex domains.

The run and tumble process is well established in order to describe the movement of bacteria in response to a chemical stimulus. However the relation between the tumbling rate and the internal state of bacteria is poorly understood. The present study aims at deriving models at the macroscopic scale from assumptions on the microscopic scales. In particular we are interested in comparisons between the stiffness of the response and the adaptation time. Depending on the asymptotics chosen both the standard Keller-Segel equation and the flux-limited Keller-Segel (FLKS) equation can appear. An interesting mathematical issue arises with a new type of equilibrium equation leading to solution with singularities.

In this paper we rigorously justify the propagation of chaos for the parabolic-elliptic Keller-Segel equation over bounded convex domains. The boundary condition under consideration is the no-flux condition. As intermediate steps, we establish the well-posedness of the associated stochastic equation as well as the well-posedness of the Keller-Segel equation for bounded weak solutions.

In this paper we use an individual-based model and its associated kinetic equation to study the generation of long jumps in the motion of E. coli. These models relate the run-and-tumble process to the intracellular reaction where the intrinsic noise plays a central role. Compared with the previous work in [13] in which the parametric assumptions are mainly for mathematical convenience and not well-suited for either numerical simulation or comparison with experimental results, our current paper make use of biologically meaningful pathways and tumbling kernels. Moreover, using the individual-based model we can now perform numerical simulations. Power-law decay of the run length, which corresponds to Levy-type motions, are observed in our numerical results. The particular decay rate agrees quantitatively with the analytical result. We also rigorously recover the fractional diffusion equation as the limit of the kinetic model.

Kinetic-transport equations that take into account the intracellular pathways are now considered as the correct description of bacterial chemotaxis by run and tumble. Recent mathematical studies have shown their interest and their relations to more standard models. Macroscopic equations of Keller–Segel type have been derived using parabolic scaling. Due to the randomness of receptor methylation or intracellular chemical reactions, noise occurs in the signaling pathways and affects the tumbling rate. Then comes the question to understand the role of an internal noise on the behavior of the full population. In this paper we consider a kinetic model for chemotaxis which includes biochemical pathway with noises. We show that under proper scaling and conditions on the tumbling frequency as well as the form of noise, fractional diffusion can arise in the macroscopic limits of the kinetic equation. This gives a new mathematical theory about how long jumps can be due to the internal noise of the bacteria.

We establish asymptotic diffusion limits of the non-classical transport equation derived in [E. W. Larsen, A generalized Boltzmann equation for non-classical particle transport, Joint international topical meeting on mathematics & computation and supercomputing in nuclear applications, 2007]. By introducing appropriate scaling parameters, the limits will be either regular or fractional diffusion equations depending on the tail behaviour of the path-length distribution. Our analysis uses the Fourier transform combined with a moment method. We conclude with remarks on the diffusion limit of the periodic Lorentz gas equation.

Recent result (Wu and Guo in Commun Math Phys 336(3):1473–1553, 2015 ) has shown that over the 2D unit disk, the classical half-space equation (CHS) for the neutron transport does not capture the correct boundary layer behaviour as long believed. In this paper we develop a regularization technique for CHS to any arbitrary order and use its first-order regularization to show that in the case of the 2D unit disk, although CHS misrepresents the boundary layer behaviour, it does give the correct boundary condition for the interior macroscopic (Laplace) equation. Therefore CHS is still a valid equation to recover the correct boundary condition for the interior Laplace equation over the 2D unit disk.

We study half-space linear kinetic equations with general boundary conditions that consist of both given incoming data and various type of reflections, extending our previous work [LLS14] on half-space equations with incoming boundary conditions. As in [LLS14], the main technique is a damping adding-removing procedure. We establish the well-posedness of linear (or linearized) half-space equations with general boundary conditions and quasi-optimality of the numerical scheme. The numerical method is validated by examples including a two-species transport equation, a multi-frequency transport equation, and the linearized BGK equation in 2D velocity space.

We consider an anisotropic first-order ODE aggregation model and its approximation by a second-order relaxation system. The relaxation model contains a small parameter $\varepsilon$, which can be interpreted as inertia or response time. We examine rigorously the limit $\varepsilon \to 0$ of solutions to the relaxation system. Of major interest is how discontinuous (in velocities) solutions to the first-order model are captured in the zero-inertia limit. We find that near such discontinuities, solutions to the second-order model perform fast transitions within a time layer of size $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{2/3})$. We validate this scale with numerical simulations.

It is of great biological interest to understand the molecular origins of chemotactic behavior of E. coli by developing population-level models based on the underlying signaling pathway dynamics. We derive macroscopic models for E. coli chemotaxis that quantitatively match with the agent-based model for all ranges of the spatial gradient, in particular when the chemical gradient is large such that the standard Keller-Segel model is no longer valid. These equations are derived both formally and rigorously as asymptotic limits for pathway-based kinetic equations. We also present numerical results that show good agreement between the macroscopic models and SPECS. Our work provides an answer to the question of how to determine the population-level diffusion coefficient and drift velocity from the molecular mechanisms of chemotaxis, for both shallow gradient and large gradient environments.