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Xiaoqian Xu

Publications and source records attributed to Xiaoqian Xu.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Suppression of chemotactic explosion by mixing

Chemotaxis plays a crucial role in a variety of processes in biology and ecology. In many instances, processes involving chemical attraction take place in fluids. One of the most studied PDE models of chemotaxis is given by Keller-Segel equation, which describes a population density of bacteria or mold which attract chemically to substance they secrete. Solution of Keller-Segel equation can exhibit dramatic collapsing behavior, where the density concentrates positive mass in a measure zero region. A natural question is whether presence of fluid flow can affect singularity formation by mixing the density thus making concentration harder to achieve. In this paper, we consider parabolic-elliptic Keller-Segel equation in two and three dimensions with additional advection term modeling ambient fluid flow. We prove that for any initial data, there exist incompressible fluid flows such that the solution to the equation stays globally regular. On the other hand, it is well known that when the fluid flow is absent, there exist initial data leading to finite time blow up. Thus presence of fluid can prevent the singularity formation. We discuss two classes of flows that have the explosion arresting property. Both classes are known as very efficient mixers. The first class are relaxation enhancing (RE) flow. These flows are stationary. The second class of flows are Yao-Zlatos optimal mixing flows, which are time dependent. The proof is based on the nonlinear version of the relaxation enhancement construction of the paper by Peter Constantin, Alexander Kiselev, Lenya Ryzhik, Andrej Zlatos, and on some variations of global regularity estimate for Keller-Segel model.

math.AP↗

A locally gradient-preserving reinitialization for level set functions

The level set method commonly requires a reinitialization of the level set function due to interface motion and deformation. We extend the traditional technique for reinitializing the level set function to a method that preserves the interface gradient. The gradient of the level set function represents the stretching of the interface, which is of critical importance in many physical applications. The proposed locally gradient-preserving reinitialization (LGPR) method involves the solution of three PDEs of Hamilton-Jacobi type in succession; first the signed distance function is found using a traditional reinitialization technique, then the interface gradient is extended into the domain by a transport equation, and finally the new level set function is achieved with the solution of a generalized reinitialization equation. We prove the well-posedness of the Hamilton-Jacobi equations, with possibly discontinuous Hamiltonians, and propose numerical schemes for their solutions. A subcell resolution technique is used in the numerical solution of the transport equation to extend data away from the interface directly with high accuracy. The reinitialization technique is computationally inexpensive if the PDEs are solved only in a small band surrounding the interface. As an important application, the LGPR method will enable the application of the local level set approach to the Eulerian Immersed boundary method.

math.NA↗

Lower bounds on the mix norm of passive scalars advected by incompressible enstrophy-constrained flows

Consider a diffusion-free passive scalar $θ$ being mixed by an incompressible flow $u$ on the torus $\mathbb{T}^d$. Our aim is to study how well this scalar can be mixed under an enstrophy constraint on the advecting velocity field.Our main result shows that the mix-norm ($||θ(t)||_{H^{-1}}$) is bounded below by an exponential function of time. The exponential decay rate we obtain is not universal and depends on the size of the support of the initial data. We also perform numerical simulations and confirm that the numerically observed decay rate scales similarly to the rigorous lower bound, at least for a significant initial period of time. The main idea behind our proof is to use recent work of Crippa and DeLellis ('08) making progress towards the resolution of Bressan's rearrangement cost conjecture.

math.AP↗