On computational proofs of the existence of solutions to nonlinear parabolic problems (Q1334781)

The paper deals with the nonlinear parabolic equation (1) \(u_ t- \Delta u= f(x,t,u,\nabla u)\) with \((x,t)\in Q= \Omega\times (0,T)\), \(u\) vanishing on the parabolic boundary of \(Q\). Here \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^ n\) \((n= 1,2,3)\) is a convex bounded domain with piecewise smooth boundary. The linearized problem (2) is obtained from (1) replacing the right hand side by \(g(x,t)\) and its approximate solution is defined in the finite element space \(S_ h= S_{x,h}\otimes S_{t,h}\), where \(S_{x,h}\) resp. \(S_{t,h}\) denotes the piecewise linear finite element space in \(x\) resp. in \(t\) (so the simultaneous finite element approximation in both space and time variables is considered). The main result of the paper (Theorem 4) presents some sufficient conditions, formulated in terms of approximate solutions of (2), which assure the existence of a weak solution of (1) in a certain space of Sobolev type. The proof of the existence is based on Schauder's fixed point theorem. The paper contains a numerical example for \(f(x,t,u,\nabla u)= p\cdot \nabla u+ \lambda u^ 2+ r\sin t\), \(n=2\), \(p= (p_ 1,p_ 2)\).