The local theory for viscous Hamilton--Jacobi equations in Lebesgue spaces. (Q1414195)

The well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for the viscous Hamilton-Jacobi (VHJ) equation \[ \partial_t u - \Delta u = a\;|\nabla u|^p \;\;\text{ in }\;\; {\mathbb R}^N\times (0,+\infty)\,, \] is investigated for irregular initial data \(u_0\) (typically, \(u_0\in L^q({\mathbb R}^N)\) for some \(q\geq 1\)), the parameters \(a\) and \(b\) satisfying \(a\in{\mathbb R}\setminus\{0\}\) and \(p\in [1,\infty)\). According to the sign of \(a\), the nonlinear term \(a\;|\nabla u|^p\) is either an absorption term (\(a<0\)) or a source term (\(a>0\)), and some of the results thus strongly depend on the sign of \(a\). If \(p\in [1,2)\), \(a\neq 0\), \(q\geq N(p-1)/(2-p)\), \(q>1\) and \(u_0\in L^q({\mathbb R}^N)\), it is shown that there is a unique global mild solution to (VHJ). Furthermore, if \(p\in [1,(N+2)/(N+1))\), a similar result holds true if \(u_0\) is a bounded Borel measure. The proof of these results relies on the temporal decay rates of the heat kernel and the Duhamel formula. These results are supplemented by non-existence and non-uniqueness results for \(p\in [1,2)\), \(a>0\) and \(q<q_c\), the latter resulting from the construction of a self-similar solution which converges to zero in \(L^q({\mathbb R}^N)\) as \(t\to 0\). The Hopf-Cole transformation also allows the authors to obtain non-existence results for \(p\geq 2\), \(a>0\) and \(q\in (1,\infty)\). Finally, if \(p\in [1,2]\), \(a<0\) and \(u_0\in L^1({\mathbb R}^N)\) is non-negative, the existence (without uniqueness) of a global mild solution is proved by a monotonicity argument, while a non-existence result is given when \(u_0\) belongs to a suitable class of bounded Borel measures under the additional assumption that \(N\geq 2\) and \(p\in ((N+2)/(N+1),2)\).