Global bifurcation and attractivity of stationary solutions of a degenerate diffusion equation (Q1092222)

The degenerate nonlinear diffusion equation \(u_ t=(u^ m)_{xx}- a(x)u^ p\) in \((0,+\infty)\times {\mathbb{R}}\) with \(u=u_ 0\geq 0\), \(u_ 0\) with compact support, where \(m>1\), \(p\geq 1\), \(m>p\) and a is a \(C^ 1\) even increasing map such that there exists \(\alpha >0\) such that (x- \(\alpha)\)a(x)\(\geq 0\) for any \(x\geq 0\) and satisfying some other condition, is studied in this paper. The authors provide a full description of the set of the steady-state solutions, together with their attractivity properties both for the Cauchy problem and the initial- boundary value problem with Dirichlet or Neumann conditions. For this, the auxiliary ordinary differential equation y''-\(a(x)y^{\beta}=0\) in \(R^+\) with \(y(0)=\gamma\), \(y'(0)=0\), where \(\gamma >0\), \(0<\beta <1\), is fully studied by using phase plane arguments, mostly shooting methods. The similarity properties of the problem are also exploited in an interesting way.