Oscillation of parabolic equations with oscillating coefficients (Q1327734)

We are concerned with the oscillatory behavior of solutions of the parabolic equation with oscillating coefficients \[ \begin{multlined} u_ t (x,t) - \left( a(t) \Delta u(x,t) + \sum^ k_{i = 1} b_ i(t) \Delta u(x,t - \sigma_ i) \right) + \\ + c \biggl( x,t, u(x,t),\;u \bigl( x, \tau_ 1(t) \bigr), \dots, u \bigl( x, \tau_ m(t) \bigr) \biggr) = f(x,t), \quad (x,t) \in \Omega \equiv G \times (0, \infty), \end{multlined} \] where \(G\) is a bounded domain of \(\mathbb{R}^ n\) with piecewise smooth boundary \(\partial G\). We assume throughout this paper that: \(a(t) \in C ([0, \infty)\); \([0, \infty)) \), \(b_ i(t) \in C ([0, \infty)\); \(\mathbb{R}^ 1)\) \((i = 1,2, \dots, k)\), \(f(x,t) \in C (\overline \Omega; \mathbb{R}^ 1)\) and \(c(x,t, \xi, \eta_ 1, \dots, \eta_ m) \in C (\overline \Omega \times \mathbb{R}^ 1 \times \mathbb{R}^ m; \mathbb{R}^ 1)\); \(c(x,t, \xi, \eta_ 1, \dots, \eta_ m) \geq 0\) for \((x,t) \in \Omega\), \(\xi \geq 0\), \(\eta_ i \geq 0\) \((i = 1,2, \dots, m)\), and \(c(x,t, \xi, \eta_ 1, \dots \eta_ m) \leq 0\) for \((x,t) \in \Omega\), \(\xi \leq 0\), \(\eta_ i \leq 0\) \((i = 1,2, \dots, m)\); \(\sigma_ i (i = 1,2, \dots, k)\) are nonnegative constants, \(\tau_ i (t) \in C ([0, \infty); \mathbb{R}^ 1)\) and \(\lim_{t \to \infty} \tau_ i (t) = \infty\) \((i = 1,2, \dots, m)\). We consider inhomogeneous Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions (with continuous right hand sides). The purpose of this paper is to present conditions which imply that every solution \(u\) is oscillatory in \(\Omega\) in the sense that \(u\) has a zero in \(G \times [t, \infty)\) for any \(t > 0\). We note that \(b_ i (t)\) \((i = 1,2, \dots, k)\) are not required to have a constant sign, that is, \(b_ i(t)\) are allowed to be oscillatory. We reduce the multi-dimensional oscillation problem to a one-dimensional problem for delay differential inequalities.