Volume 21, Issue 1

We obtain a generalized diffusion equation in modified or Riemann-Liouville form from continuous time random walk theory. The waiting time probability density function and mean squared displacement for different forms of the equation are explicitly calculated. We show examples of generalized diffusion equations in normal or Caputo form that encode the same probability distribution functions as those obtained from the generalized diffusion equation in modified form. The obtained equations are general and many known fractional diffusion equations are included as special cases.

The Caputo-Fabrizio fractional derivative is analyzed in classical and distributional settings. The integral inequalities needed for application in linear viscoelasticity are presented. They are obtained from the entropy inequality in a weak form. Moreover, integration by parts, an expansion formula, approximation formula and generalized variational principles of Hamilton’s type are given. Hamilton’s action integral in the first principle, do not coincide with the lower bound in the fractional integral, while in the second principle the minimization is performed with respect to a function from a specified space and the order of fractional derivative.

In the paper, we discuss the regular fractional Sturm-Liouville problem in a bounded domain, subjected to the homogeneous mixed boundary conditions. The results on exact and numerical solutions are based on transformation of the differential fractional Sturm-Liouville problem into the integral one. First, we prove the existence of a purely discrete, countable spectrum and the orthogonal system of eigenfunctions by using the tools of Hilbert-Schmidt operators theory. Then, we construct a new variant of the numerical method which produces eigenvalues and approximate eigenfunctions. The convergence of the procedure is controlled by using the experimental rate of convergence approach and the orthogonality of eigenfunctions is preserved at each step of approximation. In the final part, the illustrative examples of calculations and estimation of the experimental rate of convergence are presented.

Lipschitz stability and Mittag-Leffler stability with initial time difference for nonlinear nonautonomous Caputo fractional differential equation are defined and studied using Lyapunov like functions. Some sufficient conditions are obtained. The fractional order extension of comparison principles via scalar fractional differential equations with a parameter is employed. The relation between both types of stability is discussed theoretically and it is illustrated with examples.

In this paper we analyze an eigenvalue problem involving the fractional ( s , p )-Laplacian, which possesses on the one hand a continuous family of eigenvalues and, on the other hand, one more eigenvalue, which is isolated in the set of eigenvalues of the problem.

This study analyzes the complexity of ultraslow diffusion process using both the classical Shannon entropy and its general case with inverse Mittag-Leffler function in conjunction with the structural derivative. To further describe the observation process with information loss in ultraslow diffusion, e.g., some defects in the observation process, two definitions of fractional entropy are proposed by using the inverse Mittag-Leffler function, in which the Pade approximation technique is employed to numerically estimate the diffusion entropy. The results reveal that the inverse Mittag-Leffler tail in the propagator of the ultraslow diffusion equation model adds more information to the original distribution with larger entropy. Smaller value of α in the inverse Mittag-Leffler function indicates more complicated of the underlying ultraslow diffusion and corresponds to higher value of entropy. The proposed definitions of fractional entropy can serve as candidates to capture the information loss in ultraslow diffusion.

Time-fractional diffusion equation with mass absorption and the harmonic source term is studied under zero initial conditions. The Caputo derivative of the order 0 < α ≤ 2 is used. Different formulation of the problem for integer values α = 1 and α = 2 are discussed. The integral transform technique is used. The results of numerical calculations are illustrated graphically.

Problem of time-optimal control of linear systems with fractional Caputo derivatives is examined using technique of attainability sets and their support functions. A method to construct a control function that brings trajectory of the system to a strictly convex terminal set in the shortest time is elaborated. The proposed method uses technique of set-valued maps and represents a fractional version of Pontryagin’s maximum principle. A special emphasis is placed upon the problem of computing of the matrix Mittag-Leffler function, which plays a key role in the proposed methods. A technique for computing matrix Mittag-Leffler function using Jordan canonical form is discussed, which is implemented in the form of a M ATLAB routine. Theoretical results are supported by examples, in which the optimal control functions, in particular of the “bang-bang” type, are obtained.

This study is mainly to explore gas transport process in heterogeneous media, which is to lay the foundation for oil-gas exploitation and development. Anomalous transport is observed to be ubiquitous in complex geological formations and has a paramount impact on petroleum engineering. Simultaneously, the random motion of particles usually exhibits obvious path- and history- dependent behaviors. This paper investigates the time-space fractional derivative models as a potential explanation for the time memory of long waiting time and the space non-locality of large regional-scale. A one-dimensional fractional advection-dispersion equation (FADE) based on fractional Fick’s law is firstly used to accurately describe the transport of Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in complex media. The new fractional Darcy-advection-dispersion equation (FDADE) model has subsequently been proposed to make a comparison with FADE model and demonstrate its physical mechanism. Finally, the priori estimation of the parameters (fractional derivative index) in fractional derivative models and corresponding physical explanation are presented. Combined with experimental data, the numerical simulations show the fractional derivative models can well characterize the heavy-tailed and early breakthrough phenomenon of CO 2 transport.

In this work, we apply and extend our ideas presented in [4] for solving fractional integral equations with Riemann-Liouville definition. The approach made in [4] turned any linear fractional integral equation with constant coefficients and rational orders into a similar one, but with integer orders. If the right hand side was smooth enough we could differentiate at both sides to arrive to a linear ODE with constant coefficients and some initial conditions, that can be solved via an standard procedure. In this procedure, there were two major obstacles that did not allow to obtain a full result. These were the assumptions over the smoothness of the source term and the assumption about the rationality of the orders. So, one of the main topics of this document is to describe a modification of the procedure presented in [4], when the source term is not smooth enough to differentiate the required amount of times. Furthermore, we will also study the fractional integral equations with non-rational orders by a limit process of fractional integral equations with rational orders. Finally, we will connect the previous material with some fractional differential equations with Caputo derivatives described in [7]. For instance, we will deal with the fractional oscillation equation, the fractional relaxation equation and, specially, its particular case of the Basset problem. We also expose how to compute these solutions for the Riemann-Liouville case.

We study some classes of fractional differential inclusions with random parameters and we establish Filippov’s type existence results in the case when the set-valued map has nonconvex values.

Direct and inverse source problems of a fractional diffusion equation with regularized Caputo-like counterpart of a hyper-Bessel differential operator are considered. Solutions to these problems are constructed based on appropriate eigenfunction expansions and results on existence and uniqueness are established. To solve the resultant equations, a solution to such kind of non-homogeneous fractional differential equation is also presented.

We adopt a procedure of operational-umbral type to solve the (1 + 1)-dimensional fractional Fokker-Planck equation in which time fractional derivative of order α (0 < α < 1) is in the Riemann-Liouville sense. The technique we propose merges well documented operational methods to solve ordinary FP equation and a redefinition of the time by means of an umbral operator. We show that the proposed method allows significant progress including the handling of operator ordering.

In this article, we study complex spatio-temporal solutions in nonlinear time-fractional reaction-diffusion systems. The main attention is paid to nonlinear dynamics near a bifurcation point. Despite the fact that the homogeneous state is stable at the parameters lower than bifurcation ones, a variety of complex solutions can also form in the subcritical domain. As an example, we consider a generalized fractional FitzHugh-Nagumo model. Depending on the given standard bifurcation parameters and the order of fractional derivative, the new types of steady auto-wave solutions in such systems have revealed. By computer simulation, it is shown that fractional reaction-diffusion possess much more complex nonlinear dynamics than their integer counterparts even at a subcritical bifurcation.

As recently observed by Bazhlekova and Dimovski [1], the n -th derivative of the 2-parametric Mittag-Leffler function gives a 3-parametric Mittag-Leffler function, known as the Prabhakar function. Following this analogy, the n -th derivative of the (2 m -index) multi-index Mittag-Leffler functions [6] is obtained, and it turns out that it is expressed in terms of the (3 m -index) Mittag-Leffler functions [10, 11]. Further, some special cases of the fractional order Riemann-Liouville and Erdélyi-Kober integrals of the Mittag-Leffler functions are calculated and interesting relations are proved. Analogous relations happen to connect the 3 m -Mittag-Leffler functions with the integrals and derivatives of 2 m -Mittag-Leffler functions. Finally, multiple Erdélyi-Kober fractional integration operators, as operators of the generalized fractional calculus [5], are shown to relate the 2 m - and 3 m -parametric Mittag-Leffler functions.