Local existence of solutions to some degenerate parabolic equation associated with the \(p\)-Laplacian (Q2455609)

This article is concerned with the existence of solutions of the following initial-boundary value problem for a degenerate parabolic equation: \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} \frac{\partial u}{\partial t} - \Delta_pu - | u| ^{q-1}u& = f(x,t), &\quad (x,t) &\in \Omega\times (0,T),\\ u(x,t)& = 0, &\quad (x,t) &\in \partial\Omega\times (0,T),\\ u(x,0)& = u_0(x) \in L^r(\Omega), &\quad x &\in \Omega,\end{alignedat} \] where \(2 \leq p,q,r < + \infty\), \(\Delta_p\) denotes the \(p\)-Laplacian given by \(\Delta_p u = \text{div}(| \nabla u| ^{p-2}\nabla u).\) Here \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^N\) with smooth boundary \(\partial\Omega\). The main result reads as follows: Let \(p\), \(q\), \(r \in [2,\infty)\) be such that \(p < q\) and suppose that \(r > N(q -p)/p\). Then for every \(u_0 \in L^r(\Omega)\) and \[ f \in W^{1,p'}(0,T;W^{-1,p'}(\Omega) + L^{r'}(\Omega)) \cap L^{1 + \gamma}(0,T;L^r(\Omega)) \] with \(\gamma > 0\) (respectively \(\gamma = 0\)), there exists a a non-increasing function \(T_*:[0,\infty) \times [0,\infty) \to (0,T]\) (respectively \(T_f:[0,\infty) \to (0,T])\) independent of \(T\), \(u_0\) and \(f\) (respectively \(T\) and \(u_0\)) and at least one function \(u \in C_w([0,T_0];L^r(\Omega))\) with \(T_0 = T_*(| u_0| _{L^r}, \int_0^T| f(t)^{1 + \gamma}_{L^r}\,dt)\) (respectively \(T_0 = T_f(| u_0| _{L^r}))\) such that \[ u \in C([0,T_0];L^2(\Omega))\cap L^p(0,T_0;W^{1,p}(\Omega))\cap L^q(0,T_0;L^q(0,T_0;L^q(\Omega)), \] \[ | u| ^{(r-2)/p}u \in L^p(0,T_0;W^{1,p}(\Omega)), \] \[ \Delta_p u \in L^{p'}(0,T_0;W^{-1,p'}(\Omega)), \quad du/dt \in L^{q'}(0,T_0;W^{-1,p'}(\Omega) + L^{r'}(\Omega)), \] \[ t^{1/p}u \in C_w([0,T_0];W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)), \quad t^{1/2}(du/dt) \in L^2(0,T_0;L^2(\Omega)), \] which satisfies the equation in a weak sense. Moreover, the initial condition for \(u\) is interpreted as \(u(\cdot,t) \to u_0\) strongly in \(L^r(\Omega)\) as \(t \to + 0.\)