Local existence and regularity for a class of degenerate parabolic equations (Q1089528)

The nonlinear analytic semigroup theory originally developed by Da Prato and Grisvard is used to study an initial-free boundary problem. The actual equations are: \[ (1)\quad \partial u/\partial t=f(u,u_ x,u\cdot u_{xx})\quad \zeta _ -(t)<x<\zeta _ +(t),\quad 0<t<T; \] \[ u(0,x)=u_ 0(x)\quad (\zeta _ -(0)<x<\zeta _ +(0));\quad u(t,\zeta _{\pm}(t))=0. \] Here one looks for a positive solution u(t,x) and a free boundary \(x=\zeta _{\pm}(t)\), for given initial data \(u_ 0\). The nonlinearity f(u,p,s) is assumed to be real analytic and strictly increasing in s. Under these and some other assumptions on the initial data we prove the existence of a smooth (real-analytic) solution of (1) for a short time \(T>0.\) The hypotheses are such that the porous medium equation \(u_ t=(m- 1)uu_{xx}+(u_ x)^ 2\) (in its pressure form) is a special case of (1).