On the existence and uniqueness of solutions of the configurational probability diffusion equation for the generalized rigid dumbbell polymer model (Q537092)

Kinetic phase-space theories have long been associated with successfully predicting the rheological properties of a variety of macromolecular fluids. Their cornerstone is the configurational probability density, essential to calculating the stress tensor. This function is a solution to the probability diffusion equation, pertaining to the (large) family of Fokker-Planck-Smoluchowski partial differential equations (PDEs). The authors undertake to proving the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the forementioned PDEs obeying physically meaningful initial boundary conditions, an issue that has not been addressed as yet. The work consists mainly of two parts. Section 2 is devoted to the evolutionary (i.e. time dependent) boundary value problem, and a procedure based on the Galerkin approximation is used. In Section 3 one proves the existence, uniqueness and positivity of a stationary solution. The proof uses the Krein-Rutman theory.