Well-posedness for a coagulation multiple-fragmentation equation. (Q484305)

The author proves existence and uniqueness of measure-valued solutions to an integro-differential equation that models evolution in time of a system of a very large number of particles undergoing coalescence and fragmentation. \[ \partial _tc_t(x)={1\over 2}\int _0^x K(y,x-y)c_t(y)c_t(x-y)dy-c_t(x)\int _0^\infty K(x,y)c_t(y)dy \] \[ +\int _\Theta \Big [\sum _{i=1}^\infty {1\over \theta _i} F\Big ({x\over \theta _i}\Big)c_t\Big ({x\over \theta _i}\Big)-F(x)c_t(x)\Big]\beta (d\theta) \] Here \(c_t(x)\) denotes the concentration of particles of mass \(x\) at time \(t,\;1>\theta _1\geq \theta _2\geq \dots\geq 0\). The coagulation kernel \(K\) is homogeneous-like of homogeneity parameter \(\lambda \in (0,1]\), and the fragmentation kernel \(F\) is assumed to be bounded. A possibly infinite total fragmentation rate, in particular an infinite number of fragments, is considered. The problem is solved in the space of positive Radon measures satisfying \( \int _0^\infty x^\lambda c(dx)<\infty \). The result depends strongly on the use of a Wasserstein-type distance of measures \(d_\lambda (c,d)=\int _0^\infty x^{\lambda -1}| \int _x^\infty (c(dy)-d(dy))| dx\). A comparison with previously known results and models is also given.