Analysis of Heat Conduction and Anomalous Diffusion in Fractional Calculus, Second Edition

A Special Issue of Fractal and Fractional (ISSN 2504-3110) belonging to the section "Mathematical Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2027 | Viewed by 738

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Departamento de Física, Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Av. Gen. Carlos Cavalcanti 4748, Ponta Grossa 84030-900, PR, Brazil
Interests: fractional differential operators; fractional dual-phase-lag heat conduction theory; spatial and time fractional derivative; fractional diffusion; anomalous heat diffusion; heat conduction
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Departamento de Física, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Av. Colombo 5790, Maringá 87020-900, PR, Brazil
Interests: anomalous diffusion; fractional diffusion equations; diffusion equation; fractional dual-phase-lag heat conduction theory; boundary problems in liquid crystal
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fractional calculus is a powerful tool for modeling physical phenomena in which classical integer-order calculus cannot capture the system's complexity. One such area where fractional calculus has been found to be particularly useful is the study of heat conduction and anomalous thermal diffusion. The classical Fourier law of heat conduction assumes that the heat flux is proportional to the temperature gradient, which leads to a linear heat conduction equation. However, this law can only sometimes accurately describe heat conduction in complex materials. The use of fractional differential operators in the heat conduction equation has been shown to be effective in modeling non-local and memory effects in heat conduction. This behavior has been observed in many physical systems, including biological systems and porous media. Thus, fractional calculus in thermal conduction and diffusion is an interesting research area that provides useful tools to investigate the anomalous thermodynamic process in several fields, such as physics, fluid dynamics, chemistry, and biology, among others. Its relevance lies in its ability to capture the complexity of these systems and provide a more accurate description of their behavior. We invite researchers to submit original research and review articles on the recent developments in fractional differential equations in anomalous diffusion and thermal conduction, and their applications in science, technology, and engineering.

Prof. Dr. Aloisi Somer
Dr. Ervin K. Lenzi
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • fractional calculus and fractal media
  • thermo-molecular physics
  • thermodynamics
  • heat and mass transfer
  • bio-heat transfer
  • fractional thermal conduction
  • anomalous thermal diffusion
  • nonequilibrium processes
  • nonequilibrium thermodynamics
  • kinetics theory

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24 pages, 475 KB  
Article
Memory-Kernel Damping in Wave Propagation from a Variational Reservoir Model: Dispersion, Stability, and Fractional Regimes
by Derik W. Gryczak, Gabriel G. da Rocha, Aloisi Somer, Luiz R. Evangelista and Ervin K. Lenzi
Fractal Fract. 2026, 10(6), 390; https://doi.org/10.3390/fractalfract10060390 - 5 Jun 2026
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Abstract
Hereditary damping and fractional attenuation are widely used to model wave propagation in complex media, but the variational and spectral origin of the corresponding nonlocal-in-time operators is often left implicit. In this work, we derive such operators from a minimal conservative field–reservoir model. [...] Read more.
Hereditary damping and fractional attenuation are widely used to model wave propagation in complex media, but the variational and spectral origin of the corresponding nonlocal-in-time operators is often left implicit. In this work, we derive such operators from a minimal conservative field–reservoir model. A real scalar field is coupled locally to a continuum of harmonic reservoir modes, which are then eliminated exactly. The resulting reduced dynamics is a causal wave equation with a memory-friction term acting on the field velocity. The memory kernel is generated by the reservoir coupling spectrum through a cosine-transform relation, establishing a direct spectrum-to-kernel correspondence. This relation provides both a physical interpretation of hereditary damping and a practical admissibility criterion: macroscopic attenuation and dispersion arise from the delayed back-action of unresolved internal modes, while physically admissible kernels are constrained by the non-negativity of the underlying spectral density. The framework unifies several standard damping regimes. A broadband reservoir recovers the Markovian locally damped wave equation, reservoirs with a finite characteristic time generate finite-memory relaxation and frequency-dependent dispersion, and scale-free reservoir spectra produce power-law memory kernels. In the latter case, the hereditary damping operator reduces to a Caputo-type fractional derivative, showing that fractional wave attenuation can emerge as an effective reduced dynamics rather than being postulated phenomenologically. We further analyze dispersion, attenuation, causality, stability, and admissibility conditions in terms of the reservoir spectrum. The main contribution of the work is therefore to provide a variational and spectral derivation of hereditary and fractional wave damping, linking the structure of unresolved reservoir modes to macroscopic nonlocal wave dynamics. Full article
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