An antimaximum principle for a degenerate parabolic problem (Q981956)

The authors obtain an antimaximum principle for the following quasilinear parabolic problem: \[ \begin{cases} \frac{\partial u}{\partial t}-\Delta _pu=\lambda \left| u\right| ^{p-2}u+f\left( x,t\right) ,\left( x,t\right) \in \Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) ; \\ u\left( x,t\right) =0,\left( x,t\right) \in \partial \Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) ; \\ u\left( x,0\right) =u_o\left( x\right) ,x\in \Omega \end{cases} \] where \(\Delta _pu=\mathrm{div}\left( \left| \nabla u\right| ^{p-2}\nabla u\right) ,1<p<\infty \) is the \(p\)-Laplace operator, \(\lambda \in \mathbb{R}^N\) is a spectral parameter taking values near the first eigenvalue \(\lambda _1\) of \( -\Delta _p\), \(T=T_\infty \), where \(T_\infty \) \(\left( 0<T\leq \infty \right) \) denotes the \textit{maximum time} for the existence of a weak solution \(u:\Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) (suitable defined in a standard way). \(T_\infty \) may depends on \(f\) and \(u_o\in W_o^{1,p}\left( \Omega \right) \), especially when \(p>2\). The authors show that any weak solution \(u:\Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) of problem (1) eventually becomes positive for all \( x\in \Omega \) and all times \(t\geq T_{+}\), provided, for instance, \(f\left( x,t\right) \geq \underline{f}>0\) for some function \(\underline{f}\in L^\infty \left( \Omega \right) ,u_o\in W_o^{1,p}\left( \Omega \right) \cap L^\infty \left( \Omega \right) ,\) and \(\lambda _1<\lambda <\lambda +\delta ,\) where the constant \(\delta \equiv \delta \left( \underline{f},u_o\right) >0\) and \(T_{+}\) depend on \(f\) (or \(\underline{f}\) only) and \(u_o\).