Maximal monotone operator theory and its applications to thin film equation in epitaxial growth on vicinal surface (Q1751595)

The authors establish for \(c_0>0\) the existence of a global strong solution of \[ w_t=[(w_{hh}+c_0)^{-3}]_{hh},\qquad w(0,\cdot)=w^0 \] which satisfies \(w(t,h)=w(t,h+1)\) a.e. and \(\int_0^1 w(t,h)\;dh=0\). The initial value \(w^0\) is a sufficiently smooth, a.e. 1-periodic \(L^2\)-function. As the title indicates, the problem arises in the context of the thin film equation. Their approach relies on expressing the problem as an evolution equation, where the right hand side is the subdifferential of a convex functiononal in a nonreflexive Banach space, and then reduces it to a suitable Hilbert space, which allows to employ results for maximal monotone operator. The challenge is to deal with the fact that \(w_{hh}\) lacks regularity.