On a \(L^{\infty}\) functional derivative estimate relating to the Cauchy problem for scalar semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations with general continuous nonlinearity (Q1651938)

The paper deals with bounded classical solutions to the Cauchy problem for scalar second order semi-linear parabolic PDE \[ \begin{cases} u_t-\Delta u=f(u) & \text{in}\;D_T=\mathbb{R}^N\times(0,T],\\ u=u_0 & \text{on}\;\mathbb{R}^N\times\{0\}, \end{cases} \] with nonlinearity \(f\in C(\mathbb{R})\) and where \(u_0\) is a bounded and continuous real-valued function defined on \(\mathbb{R}^N\) which has piecewise continuous bounded gradient. The authors prove the bound \[ \mathop{\max}\limits_{i=1,\ldots,N}\left(\mathop{\sup}\limits_{x \in \mathbb{R}^N} |u_{x_i}(x,t)|\right) \leq \mathcal{F}_t(f, u_0, u)\; \forall t \in [0, T], \] with \[ \mathcal{F}_t(f,v,u):= \mathop{\max}\limits_{i=1,\ldots,N} \|v_{x_i}\|_\infty+\dfrac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}\int\limits_0^t \dfrac{\|f(u(\cdot,\tau))\|_\infty}{\sqrt{t-\tau}}\;d\tau. \]