Asymptotics of the fast diffusion equation via entropy estimates (Q1017873)

The authors study the asymptotic behavior in time of weak non-negative solutions for the Cauchy problem \[ \begin{aligned} & \partial_{\tau}u = \Delta u^m, \quad (\tau,y) \in (0,T)\times\mathbb R^d, \quad d \geq 3,\\ & u(0,\cdot) = u_0, \end{aligned} \] where \(m \in (0,1)\) (which means fast diffusion). The behavior of solutions is quite different in the parameter ranges \(m_c < m < 1\) and \(0 < m < m_c\). The critical exponent is \(m_c = (d-2)/d\) and for \(m > m_c\) the mass \(\int_{\mathbb R^d}u(y,t)dy\) is preserved in time if \(u_0\) is integrable in \(\mathbb R^d\). On the contrary, solutions may extinguish in finite time in the lower range \(m < m_c\), for instance when \(u_0 \in L^{p_*}(\mathbb R^d)\) with \(p_{*} = d/(1-d)\): then there exists a time \(T > 0\) such that \(u(\tau,y)\to 0\) as \(t\) goes to \(T\). The authors mainly interested in asymptotic behavior of weak solutions of the above-mentioned problem in the limit of \(t\to \infty\) for \(m\geq m_c\), or as \(t\) approaches the extinction time when \(0 < m < m_c\). They consider a wide class of solutions which vanish in finite time \(T\) and describe their behavior as \(\tau\) goes to \(T\). The method suggested allows to treat simultaneously the ranges \(0 < m < m_c\) and \(m_c \leq m < 1\) in which one is interested in the behavior of the solutions as \(\tau\) goes to infinity. In this case the Barenblatt solutions \[ U_{D,T} = \frac{1}{R(\tau)^d}\left(D + \frac{1-m}{m}\left|\frac{y}{R(\tau)}\right|^2\right)^{-1/(1-m)} \] are extended to the range \(0 < m < m_c\), but with a different form of \(\mathbb R\), that is \[ R(\tau) = [d(m_c - m)(T - \tau)]^{-1/d(m_c - m)}. \] Here \(D\), \(T\) are free nonnegative parameters and the above modified solutions are attributed to the pseudo-Barenblatt solutions. The authors give a complete classification of the convergence towards Baranblatt and pseudo-Barenblatt solutions for \(t\) large enough if \(m \geq m_c\), or close enough to the extinction time if \(t < m_c\). Such results are new in the range \(m \leq m_c\) and in the range \(m_c < m < 1\), they improve known results.