Existence and uniqueness of weak solutions of uniformly degenerate quasilinear parabolic equations (Q1075517)

The paper considers the quasilinear parabolic pde: \[ \dot u=v\cdot a(\cdot,u)\nabla u+b(\cdot,u)\cdot \nabla u+c(\cdot,u) \] with a uniformly degenerate ellipticity condition: \(\nu\) (s)\(\leq \sum a_{ij}(\cdot,s)\xi_ i\xi_ j<\Lambda \nu (s)\) for \(\sum | \xi_ j|^ 2=1\) where \(0<\nu (s)\) for \(s>0\) but \(\nu (0)=0\). The principal hypothesis is that \((1/m)[\alpha /\beta]^{1-1/m}\leq \Phi'(\beta)/\Phi'(\alpha)\leq m\) for \(0<\alpha <\beta <\delta\) (some \(\delta >0\), \(m>1)\) where \(\Phi\) is the inverse of \(\phi:=\int \cdot \nu\). The context is that of \(C^{\alpha}\) regularity. Existence of a positive Hölder-continuous solution is shown; uniqueness is shown when \(\nu(\alpha)/\nu(\beta) \leq \lambda(\alpha/\beta)\) for \(0<\alpha <\beta <\delta\) with \(\lambda (0+)=0\).