The set of solutions for certain semilinear heat equations (Q1893804)

The author digresses on a theorem of H. Kneser which, stated in slightly imprecise terms is as follows. Consider an ODE \[ y_t= f(t, y),\tag{1} \] where for simplicity \(f\) is assumed to be continuous on \(\mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{R}^n\). Fix \(c> 0\) and \(y_0\) and let \(S_c\) be the set of \(y_c= y(c)\) for which there is a solution \(y(t)\) to (1) such that \(y(0)= y_0\) and \(y(c)= y_c\); then \(S_c\) is closed and connected. The author shows that H. Knesers theorem extends in a certain trivially to a large class of reaction diffusion equations with Neumann conditions by showing that in a suitable functional analytic setting the only possible solutions in \(\text{BC}(\overline\Omega)\) are necessarily those which are constant on \(\Omega\), i.e. solutions of the associated ODE. The class of problems treated by the author are: \[ u_t= \Delta u+ f(u),\tag{2} \] \(u(0)= 0\) plus Neumann boundary conditions on \(\Omega\) if \(\Omega\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n\) is smooth and bounded. The solution \(u\) is assumed to take values in \(\text{BC}(\overline \Omega)\). The nonlinearity \(f(u)\) is continuous and satisfies: \(f(0)= 0\), \(f(u)> 0\) for \(u> 0\) and \(g(u)= \int^u_0 f(s)^{- 1} ds< \infty\), \(f(u)\) is nondecreasing. It then follows that \(g\) has a nondecreasing inverse \(g^{- 1}\) on \([0, T_\infty)\), where \(T_\infty= \int^\infty_0 f(s)^{- 1}ds\). The author's theorem 1.2 then states that every solution to (2) with values in \(\text{BC}(\overline\Omega)\) is a solution of the ODE \(u_t= f(u)\), \(u(0)= 0\) and thus necessarily of the form \(g^{- 1}(t)\). The author points out that his theorem gives no information if one requires the solution to be in \(L^p(\Omega)\) (some \(p> 1\)). The paper contains further results of the above type.