On distributional solutions of local and nonlocal problems of porous medium type (Q1681552)

The authors develop well-posedness and a priori estimates (\(L^1\) contraction, comparison, \(L^p\) estimates, energy estimate, time regularity and conservation of mass) for bounded distributional solutions of the nonlinear and nonlocal evolution equation \(u_t-{\mathcal L}^{\sigma,\mu}\varphi(u)=g(x,t)\) where \(\varphi\) is merely continuous and nondecreasing, and \({\mathcal L}^{\sigma,\mu}\) is the generator of a general symmetric Lévy process. New uniqueness results for bounded distributional solutions to this problem and the corresponding elliptic equation are shown. A key role is played by a new Liouville type property for \({\mathcal L}^{\sigma,\mu}\). Existence and a priori estimates are deduced from a numerical approximation, and energy-type estimates are also obtained.