On the existence of moments of solutions to fragmentation equations (Q2338715)

Using semigroup theory the authors investigate the propagation of moments for non-negative solutions to the multiple fragmentation equation \[ \partial_t u(t,x) = - a(x) u(t,x) + \int_x^\infty a(y) b(x|y) u(t,y)\;dy\;, \quad x>0\;, \;t>0\;, \] with initial condition \(u_0\in L^1(0,\infty; x dx)\), \(u_0\geq 0\). Here the fragmentation rate \(a\) is a non-negative function which grows at most algebraically (that is, there are \(m\geq 0\) and \(C>0\) such that \(a(x)\leq C(1+x^m)\)) and the daughter distribution function \(b\) satisfies \[ \int_0^y x b(x|y)\;dx = y \;,\quad y>0\;, \] which guarantees the total mass conservation. It is shown that, if a moment of order \(k\geq 1\) is initially finite, then it remains finite for all positive times. Assuming further that \[ \int_0^y b(x|y)\;dx \leq b_0 (1+y^l) \;,\quad y>0\;, \] for some \(l\geq 0\), the previous result is shown to be valid as well for \(k=0\). Next, some conditions on \(a\) and \(b\) are given to guarantee that, given \(p\geq 1\), all moments of order greater or equal to \(p\) are finite for positive times provided the moment of order \(p\) is initially finite. Similar results are given for the discrete version of the multiple fragmentation equation.