Blow-up phenomena for gradient flows of discrete homogeneous functionals (Q2422346)

The paper deals with a deterministic particle approximation of the gradient flow of homogeneous functionals in the family \[ \mathcal{G}_m[\rho]=\dfrac{1}{m-1}\int_{\mathbb{R}} \rho(x)^mdx-\dfrac{\chi}{m-1} \iint_{\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}} |x-y|^{1-m} \rho(x)\rho(y)dxdy, \] where $\chi>0$ is the interaction coefficient, $m\in(1,2)$ is the non-linear diffusion exponent, and $\rho$ a probability distribution function, $\rho\in L^m\cap L^1(|x|^2dx).$ Such functionals arise in the Lagrangian approximation of systems of self-interacting and diffusing particles. The authors focus on the case of negative homogeneity and prove that all solutions become singular in finite time in the case of strong self-interaction (the super critical case). Numerical simulations are also provided that illustrate the striking non-linear dynamics when the initial data have positive energy.