Blow-up solutions and global solutions for nonlinear parabolic problems (Q960217)

In this paper the author consider the following initial boundary value problem: \[ \begin{cases}\beta_t(u)=Lu+f(u)&\quad\text{in }\Omega \times (0,T), \\ \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}+\sigma(x,t) b(u) =0&\quad\text{on }\partial \Omega \times(0,T), \\ u(x,0) =\Phi(x) >0 &\quad \text{in }\Omega \end{cases} \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^N\) with \(C^2\) boundary, \( \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}\) denotes the outward normal derivative, \( Lu=a^{ij}\left( x\right) u_{,ij}+b^i\left( x\right) u_{,i}\) is uniform elliptic. The author assumes that \(\beta\) is a positive \(C^3\left( \mathbb{R}^{+}\right) \) function, increasing, \(f\) is a positive \(C^2\left( \mathbb{R}^{+}\right)\) function, \(b\) is a positive \(C^1\left( \mathbb{R} ^{+}\right) \) function, \(\sigma\) is a nonnegative \(C^1\left( \overline{ \Omega }_T\right) \) function, \(\Omega _T=\Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) \), \(u_0(x)\) is a positive \(C^3\left( \overline{\Omega }\right) \) function and satisfies the compatibility condition \[ \frac{\partial u_0}{\partial n}+\sigma(x,0) b(u_0)=0\text{ on }\partial \Omega. \] Using maximum principles and super and sub-solution technique, the author obtains some existence results for blow-up solutions, upper bounds of the blow-up time, upper estimates of the blow-up rate, existence theorems for global solutions and upper estimates of global solutions. In the last section of the paper there are given examples for a biological model, for Ricci flow problem and also for a porous medium problem. For this last example, the author set an open problem.