On a Fokker-Planck equation arising in population dynamics (Q1281534)

The existence and uniqueness of the solution of the nonlinear initial-boundary value problem \[ \begin{cases}\partial_tu=\partial_x\{M(u;t,x)u+\partial_x(D(u;t,x)u)\}\text{ in }(0,T)\times(0,1)\\ \left.u\right|_{t=0}=u_0\\ M(u)u+\partial_x(D(u)u)=0\text{ on }x\in\{0,1\}\end{cases} \] is established in \(L^q(0,T;W^{1/q}(0,1))\) for all \(1\leq q<{4\over 3}\) and nonnegative initial data \(u_0\in L^1(0,1)\). This problem models the evolution of certain properties in populations of social organisms. Departing from well-known properties of \(L^2\)-solutions of the corresponding linearized problem, the Riesz-Schauder fixed point theorem is applied to solve the above nonlinear problem for nonnegative \(L^2\) initial data \(u_0\). Deriving some estimates depending only on the \(L^1\) norm of \(u_0\) and applying approximation by nonnegative initial data in \(C_0^\infty(0,1)\) as well as a compactness lemma, the existence result is extended to arbitrary nonnegative \(L^1\) initial data.