Persistence of $C^2$ regularity for aggregation patches

Abstract

We prove persistence of $C^2$ boundary regularity for patch solutions of the two-dimensional aggregation transport equation, in contrast with the known $C^2$ ill-posedness of Euler vortex patches. More generally, we consider transport equations with kernels of the form $L(\nabla N)$, where $N$ is the fundamental solution of the Laplacian and $L$ is a linear map. We show that $C^2$ regularity persists for every $C^2$ initial patch if and only if $L$ is a scalar multiple of the identity. Our approach builds on the curvature formulation introduced by Kiselev and Luo.