On Rosenau-type approximations to fractional diffusion equations (Q500892)

The authors study an approximation to fractional diffusion equations, which is obtained by means of the argument that Rosenau originally proposed to attain a regularized version of the Chapman-Enskog expansion of hydrodynamics. The approximation consists of a non-local linear kinetic equation of Boltzmann type, in which the Maxwellian background is represented by a Linnik distribution. Among the main results, the authors show that the solution to the Rosenau approximation can be split into a singular part and a regularized one. The former is a perturbation of mass zero, which goes to zero exponentially fast both with respect to time and to the small parameter which appears in the Rosenau approximation. The latter, for any fixed value of the small parameter, converges in time, in strong sense, to the fundamental solution of the fractional diffusion equation. Therefore, the authors conclude that the Rosenau argument naturally introduces a consistent approximation of fractional diffusion equations, which not only reproduces the limit phenomenon at fixed time and for small values of the parameter, but also reproduces, apart from rapidly decaying perturbations, the limit phenomenon for large times. The results could be fruitfully employed to construct new numerical approximations to fractional diffusion equations.