Stability and Clustering of Self-Similar Solutions of Aggregation Equations

In this paper we consider the linear stability of a family of exact collapsing similarity solutions to the aggregation equation ρ t = ∇ · (ρ∇K * ρ) in Rd , d ⩾ 2, where K(r) = r γ/γ with γ \u3e 2. It was previously observed [Y. Huang and A. L. Bertozzi, “Self-similar blowup solutions to an aggregation equation in Rn,” J. SIAM Appl. Math.70, 2582–2603 (Year: 2010)]10.1137/090774495 that radially symmetric solutions are attracted to a self-similar collapsing shell profile in infinite time for γ \u3e 2. In this paper we compute the stability of the similarity solution and show that the collapsing shell solution is stable for 2 \u3c γ \u3c 4. For γ \u3e 4, we show that the shell solution is always unstable and destabilizes into clusters that form a simplex which we observe to be the long time attractor. We then classify the stability of these simplex solutions and prove that two-dimensional (in-)stability implies n-dimensional (in-)stability