In this volume a theory for models of transport in the presence of a free boundary is developed.Macroscopic laws of transport are described by PDE's. When the system is open, there are several mechanisms to couple the system with the external forces. Here a class of systems where the interaction with the exterior takes place in correspondence of a free boundary is considered. Both continuous and discrete models sharing the same structure are analysed. In Part I a free boundary problem related to the Stefan Problem is worked out in all details. For this model a new notion of relaxed solution is proposed for which global existence and uniqueness is proven. It is also shown that this is the hydrodynamic limit of the empirical mass density of the associated particle system. In Part II several other models are discussed. The expectation is that the results proved for the basic model extend to these other cases.All the models discussed in this volume have an interest in problems arising in several research fields such as heat conduction, queuing theory, propagation of fire, interface dynamics, population dynamics, evolution of biological systems with selection mechanisms.In general researchers interested in the relations between PDE’s and stochastic processes can find in this volume an extension of this correspondence to modern mathematical physics.

For the past several decades, the study of free boundary problems has been a very active subject of research occurring in a variety of applied sciences. What these problems have in common is their formulation in terms of suitably posed initial and boundary value problems for nonlinear partial differential equations. Such problems arise, for example, in the mathematical treatment of the processes of heat conduction, filtration through porous media, flows of non-Newtonian fluids, boundary layers, chemical reactions, semiconductors, and so on. The growing interest in these problems is reflected by the series of meetings held under the title "Free Boundary Problems: Theory and Applications" (Ox ford 1974, Pavia 1979, Durham 1978, Montecatini 1981, Maubuisson 1984, Irsee 1987, Montreal 1990, Toledo 1993, Zakopane 1995, Crete 1997, Chiba 1999). From the proceedings of these meetings, we can learn about the different kinds of mathematical areas that fall within the scope of free boundary problems. It is worth mentioning that the European Science Foundation supported a vast research project on free boundary problems from 1993 until 1999. The recent creation of the specialized journal Interfaces and Free Boundaries: Modeling, Analysis and Computation gives us an idea of the vitality of the subject and its present state of development. This book is a result of collaboration among the authors over the last 15 years.

This book includes the joint proceedings of the International Conference on Particle Systems and PDEs VI, VII and VIII. Particle Systems and PDEs VI was held in Nice, France, in November/December 2017, Particle Systems and PDEs VII was held in Palermo, Italy, in November 2018, and Particle Systems and PDEs VIII was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in December 2019. Most of the papers are dealing with mathematical problems motivated by different applications in physics, engineering, economics, chemistry and biology. They illustrate methods and topics in the study of particle systems and PDEs and their relation. The book is recommended to probabilists, analysts and to those mathematicians in general, whose work focuses on topics in mathematical physics, stochastic processes and differential equations, as well as to those physicists who work in statistical mechanics and kinetic theory.

This book presents a self-contained introduction to the analytic foundation of a level set approach for various surface evolution equations including curvature flow equations. These equations are important in many applications, such as material sciences, image processing and differential geometry. The goal is to introduce a generalized notion of solutions allowing singularities, and to solve the initial-value problem globally-in-time in a generalized sense. Various equivalent definitions of solutions are studied. Several new results on equivalence are also presented. Moreover, structures of level set equations are studied in detail. Further, a rather complete introduction to the theory of viscosity solutions is contained, which is a key tool for the level set approach. Although most of the results in this book are more or less known, they are scattered in several references, sometimes without proofs. This book presents these results in a synthetic way with full proofs. The intended audience are graduate students and researchers in various disciplines who would like to know the applicability and detail of the theory as well as its flavour. No familiarity with differential geometry or the theory of viscosity solutions is required. Only prerequisites are calculus, linear algebra and some basic knowledge about semicontinuous functions.

Building on the basic techniques of separation of variables and Fourier series, the book presents the solution of boundary-value problems for basic partial differential equations: the heat equation, wave equation, and Laplace equation, considered in various standard coordinate systems--rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical. Each of the equations is derived in the three-dimensional context; the solutions are organized according to the geometry of the coordinate system, which makes the mathematics especially transparent. Bessel and Legendre functions are studied and used whenever appropriate throughout the text. The notions of steady-state solution of closely related stationary solutions are developed for the heat equation; applications to the study of heat flow in the earth are presented. The problem of the vibrating string is studied in detail both in the Fourier transform setting and from the viewpoint of the explicit representation (d'Alembert formula). Additional chapters include the numerical analysis of solutions and the method of Green's functions for solutions of partial differential equations. The exposition also includes asymptotic methods (Laplace transform and stationary phase). With more than 200 working examples and 700 exercises (more than 450 with answers), the book is suitable for an undergraduate course in partial differential equations.

This volume covers selected topics addressed and discussed during the workshop “PDE models for multi-agent phenomena,” which was held in Rome, Italy, from November 28th to December 2nd, 2016. The content mainly focuses on kinetic equations and mean field games, which provide a solid framework for the description of multi-agent phenomena. The book includes original contributions on the theoretical and numerical study of the MFG system: the uniqueness issue and finite difference methods for the MFG system, MFG with state constraints, and application of MFG to market competition. The book also presents new contributions on the analysis and numerical approximation of the Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equations, the isotropic Landau model, the dynamical approach to the quantization problem and the asymptotic methods for fully nonlinear elliptic equations. Chiefly intended for researchers interested in the mathematical modeling of collective phenomena, the book provides an essential overview of recent advances in the field and outlines future research directions.

Everything is more simple than one thinks but at the same time more complex than one can understand Johann Wolfgang von Goethe To reach the point that is unknown to you, you must take the road that is unknown to you St. John of the Cross This is a book on the numerical approximation ofpartial differential equations (PDEs). Its scope is to provide a thorough illustration of numerical methods (especially those stemming from the variational formulation of PDEs), carry out their stability and convergence analysis, derive error bounds, and discuss the algorithmic aspects relative to their implementation. A sound balancing of theoretical analysis, description of algorithms and discussion of applications is our primary concern. Many kinds of problems are addressed: linear and nonlinear, steady and time-dependent, having either smooth or non-smooth solutions. Besides model equations, we consider a number of (initial-) boundary value problems of interest in several fields of applications. Part I is devoted to the description and analysis of general numerical methods for the discretization of partial differential equations. A comprehensive theory of Galerkin methods and its variants (Petrov Galerkin and generalized Galerkin), as wellas ofcollocationmethods, is devel oped for the spatial discretization. This theory is then specified to two numer ical subspace realizations of remarkable interest: the finite element method (conforming, non-conforming, mixed, hybrid) and the spectral method (Leg endre and Chebyshev expansion).