A heat equation in which the diffusion coefficient changes sign (Q1081753)

The authors consider diffusion equations of the type \[ \sigma \partial_ tu=\partial^ 2_ xu-q \partial_ xu-pu+f \] for (x,t)\(\in (a,b)\times (0,T)\), where \(a<0<b\) and \(\sigma =\sigma (x,t)\) changes sign as x passes through the origin. Moreover Dirichlet boundary conditions at \(x=a\) and \(x=b\) are given as well as initial conditions at \(t=0\) for \(x>0\) and terminal conditions at \(t=T\) for \(x<0\). Under suitable assumptions the existence of weak solutions is proven, and a uniqueness result for strong solutions given. The existence of a strong solution is proven in the special case \(p=q=0\) for a class of diffusion coefficients \(\sigma\). The heart of the paper is a uniqueness result for weak solutions where the class of admissible functions \(\sigma\) contains \(\sigma (x)=| x|^ m\) (m odd) as well as certain functions which may also depend explicitly on t, which is of importance if one has nonlinear problems in mind. As the authors also remark the paper is a generalization of the article ''Sur une équation d'évolution changeant de type'' by \textit{M. S. Baouendi} and \textit{P. Grisvard} [J. Functional Anal. 2, 352-367 (1968; Zbl 0164.127)].