The biharmonic heat operator on edge manifolds and non-linear fourth order equations (Q2634738)

The author provides a self-adjoint extension of the bi-Laplacian on manifolds with incomplete edge singularities, a class which includes spaces with isolated conical singularities, and study its mapping properties with respect to some Banach spaces. Together with the operator's strong continuity, this yields short time existence for certain semi-linear equations of fourth order. In fact, the author's interest is motivated by the Cahn-Hillard equation on spaces with isolated conical singularities. The method employs the microlocal construction of the biharmonic heat kernel.