Global existence of a classical solution for a large class of free boundary problems in one space dimension (Q1895856)

The paper considers a class of free boundary problems for the parabolic equation \[ u_t = a(x,t, u,u_x) u_{xx} + b(x,t, u,u_x). \] The domain considered is \(l(t) < x < s(t)\), \(0 < t < T\), where \(x = l(t)\) is a presented curve and \(x = s(t)\) is the free boundary, on which the free boundary conditions are \[ u \bigl( s(t),t \bigr) = 0, \quad u_x \bigl( s(t),t \bigr) = F \bigl[ s(\tau) \bigr] (t), \] \(F[s (\tau)] (t) : C^1 ([0,t]) \to \mathbb{R}\) is a family of functionals acting on \(C^1 ([0, t])\), \(\nabla t \in [0,T]\), satisfying the following properties: (i) the \(H^\beta\)-norm of \(F [s (\tau)] (t)\) in any interval \([0,\overline t]\) can be estimated in terms of the same norm of \(s(t)\), (ii) \(F (s (\tau)] (t) \geq \delta > 0\). A first part of the paper is devoted to the study of the problem in which Dirichlet data are presented on the given curve \(x = l(t)\). An initial condition is given for \(l (0) < x < s(0)\). The problem is said to possess a global solution \((s,u)\) if \(T = + \infty\) or if the two boundaries meet each other at some finite time. The author proves a global existence theorem under the usual parabolicity and growth assumptions for the function \(a\) and with some more specific hypotheses on \(b\). The proof is based on some crucial estimates on \(u, u_x ,u_t\) obtained through a careful analysis of the behaviour of the level lines of \(u\) in the vicinity of the free boundary. The style of the proof is the following: first it is shown that any local solution can be continued either to infinity or till the domain collapses, then a local existence and uniqueness theorem is proved by means of a contraction argument. The latter result is indeed obtained for a much more general class of boundary conditions on the curve \(x = l(t)\). Various generalization are discussed and some remarkable estimates are obtained in the appendices.