The paper compares computational aspects of four approaches to compute conservation laws of single Differential Equations (DEs) or systems of them, ODEs and PDEs. The only restriction, required by two of the four corresponding computer algebra programs, is that each DE has to be solvable for a leading derivative. Extra constraints for the conservation laws can be specified. Examples include new conservation laws that are non-polynomial in the functions, that have an explicit variable dependence and families of conservation laws involving arbitrary functions. The following equations are investigated in examples: Ito, Liouville, Burgers, Kadomtsev–Petviashvili, Karney–Sen–Chu–Verheest, Boussinesq, Tzetzeica, Benney.

We consider the Ginzburg–Landau equation in dimension two. We introduce a key notion of the vortex (interaction) energy. It is defined by minimizing the renormalized Ginzburg–Landau (free) energy functional over functions with a given set of zeros of given local indices. We find the asymptotic behaviour of the vortex energy as the inter-vortex distances grow. The leading term of the asymptotic expansion is the vortex self-energy while the next term is the classical Kirchhoff–Onsager Hamiltonian. To derive this expansion we use several novel techniques.

We consider the one-dimensional and two-dimensional filtration-absorption equation ut = uΔu−(c−1)(∇u)2. The one-dimensional case was considered previously by Barenblatt et al. [4], where a special class of self-similar solutions was introduced. By the analogy with the 1D case we construct a family of axisymmetric solutions in 2D. We demonstrate numerically that the self-similar solutions obtained attract the solutions of non-self-similar Cauchy problems having the initial condition of compact support. The main analytical result we provide is the linear stability of the above self-similar solutions both in the 1D case and in the 2D case.

We study the annihilation dynamics arising in the KPP-Fisher equation, proposed by Fisher in 1936 to model the propagation of a mutant gene and subsequently studied rigorously in the seminal work of Kolmogorov, Petrovskii and Piskunov. The approach is via a comparison theorem, where the comparison functions satisfy equations which are linearizable to the heat equation. In some sense, we have obtained a ‘linearization’ of the KPP-Fisher equation.

Three-dimensional nonstationary flow of a viscous incompressible liquid is investigated in a layer, driven by a nonuniform distribution of temperature on its free boundaries. If the temperature given on the layer boundaries is quadratically dependent on horizontal coordinates, external mass forces are absent, and the motion starts from rest then the free boundary problem for the Navier–Stokes equations has an ‘exact’ solution in terms of two independent variables. Here the free boundaries of the layer remain parallel planes and the distance between them must be also determined. In present paper, we formulate conditions for both the unique solvability of the reduced problem globally in time and the collapse of the solution in finite time. We further study qualitative properties of the solution such as its behaviour for large time (in the case of global solvability of the problem), and the asymptotics of the solution near the collapse moment in the opposite case.