Well-posedness and stability results for a quasilinear periodic Muskat problem (Q1736174)

The authors study the Muskat problem, which describes the spatially periodic motion of two fluids with equal viscosities under the effect of gravity in a vertical unbounded two-dimensional geometry. They first prove that the classical formulation of the problem is equivalent to a nonlocal and nonlinear evolution equation expressed in terms of singular integrals and having only the interface between the fluids as unknown. They next show that this evolution equation has a quasilinear structure, which is not obvious, and they also disclose the parabolic character of the equation. The authors exploit these aspects to establish the local well-posedness of the problem for arbitrary initial data in $H^s(S)$, with $3/2 < s < 2$, determine a new criterion for the global existence of solutions, and uncover a parabolic smoothing property. In addition, they prove that the zero steady-state solution is exponentially stable.