Beginner's guide to Aggregation-Diffusion Equations

Abstract

The aim of this survey is to serve as an introduction to the different techniques available in the broad field of Aggregation-Diffusion Equations. We aim to provide historical context, key literature, and main ideas in the field. We start by discussing the modelling and famous particular cases: Heat equation, Fokker-Plank, Porous medium, Keller-Segel, Chapman-Rubinstein-Schatzman, Newtonian vortex, Caffarelli-V\'azquez, McKean-Vlasov, Kuramoto, and one-layer neural networks. In Section 4 we present the well-posedness frameworks given as PDEs in Sobolev spaces, and gradient-flow in Wasserstein. Then we discuss the asymptotic behaviour in time, for which we need to understand minimisers of a free energy. We then present some numerical methods which have been developed. We conclude the paper mentioning some related problems.