Controlling number of particles in fragmentation equations (Q989342)

The main aim of this paper is to analyze a class of fragmentation equations of the form \[ \partial_t u(x, t) = - a(x)u(x, t) + \int_x^\infty a(y)b(x|y)u(y, t)\,dy \] with power law fragmentation rate \(a(x) = x^{\alpha}\) , where \(b(x|y)\) is the distribution of particle masses \(x\) spawned by the fragmentation of a particle of mass \(y > x\). Here, \(u(x, t)\) is the density of particles having mass \(x\) at time \(t\). Introducing the space \(X_{0,1}= L^1(\mathbb R^+, (1 + x)\,dx)\), of particular interest for the authors is the honesty of the process in the space \(X_{0,1}\); that is, whether the evolution of the mass and number of the particles given by a solution \(u\) coincide with the ones predicted by the local laws used to construct the above equation. One of the main results of this paper is that the problem is well-posed and honest in \(X_{0,1}\) for a fragmentation rate \(a\) bounded at \(0\) and with \(b\) yielding the number of daughter particles at \(0\). The authors also consider the phenomena of ``shattering''; that is, the formation of a dust of zero-size particles.