Propagation of regularity for transport equations. A Littlewood-Paley approach

Abstract: It is known that linear advection equations with Sobolev velocity fields have very poor regularity properties: Solutions propagate only derivatives of logarithmic order, which can be measured in terms of suitable Gagliardo seminorms. We propose a new approach to the study of regularity that is based on Littlewood-Paley theory, thus measuring regularity in terms of Besov norms. We recover the results that are available in the literature and extend these optimally to the diffusive setting. As a consequence, we derive sharp bounds on rates of convergence in the zero-diffusivity limit.