Weak solutions to the Cauchy problem for the diffusive discrete coagulation--fragmentation system. (Q1425123)

The Cauchy problem for the discrete coagulation-fragmentation equation reads \[ \partial_t c_i - d_i \;\Delta c_i = R_i(c) \;\;\text{ in }\;\; (0,+\infty)\times {\mathbb R}^d\,, \;\;\; i\geq 1\,, \] where \(c=(c_i)_{i\geq 1}\) denotes the densities of the clusters (\(c_i\) being the local density of clusters of size \(i\geq 1\)) and the reaction term \(R_i(c) = K_i(c)+F_i(c)\) describes the effects of binary coagulation and multiple fragmentation, with \[ K_i(c) = \frac{1}{2}\;\sum_{j=1}^{i-1} a_{i-j,j}\;c_{i-j}\;c_j - \sum_{j=1}^\infty a_{i,j}\;c_i\;c_j\,, \] and \[ F_i(c) = - B_i\;c_i + \sum_{j=1}^\infty B_{i+j}\;\beta_{i+j,i}\;c_{i+j}\,, \] for \(i\geq 1\). Assuming that the diffusion coefficients \((d_i)\) are positive and uniformly bounded from above and that the coagulation and fragmentation coefficients \((a_{i,j})\) and \((B_{i+j}\;\beta_{i+j,i})\) are sublinear with respect to \(j\) for each \(i\geq 1\), the existence of a global weak solution to the Cauchy problem is shown. As in the previous work on the initial-boundary value problem for the same equation with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, the proof relies on weak and strong compactness arguments in \(L^1({\mathbb R}^d)\).