On the quenching behavior of the solution of a semilinear parabolic equation (Q2640773)

Consider the initial-boundary value problem \[ u_ t-u_{xx}=\epsilon /(1-u)^{\beta},\quad -1<x<1,\quad t>0 \] \[ u(\pm 1,t)=0,\quad t\geq 0;\quad u(x,0)=u_ 0(x),\quad -1<x<1, \] where \(\beta,\epsilon >0\), \(0\leq u_ 0<1\), \(u_ 0(\pm 1)=0\) and \((u_ 0)''+\epsilon /(1-u_ 0)^{\beta}\geq 0.\) u is said to quench, iff there exists a \(T>0\) and a sequence \(((x_ n,t_ n))\) with \(| x_ n| <1\), \(t_ n<T\), \(t_ n\to T\) such that \(u(x_ n,t_ n)\to 1\). Each limit point of such a sequence \((x_ n)\) is called a quenching point. The author shows that there are finitely many quenching points and that the quenching rate is given by \[ [1- u(x,t)](T-t)^{-\gamma}\to (\epsilon /\gamma)^{\gamma}\text{ for } t\to T-, \] where \(\gamma:=(1+\beta)^{-1}\).