Probabilistic representation for solutions of an irregular porous media type equation (Q1958461)

The authors consider a porous media type equation in the sense of distributions, with a given initial probability density. They look for a solution with time evolution in \(L^1(\mathbb{R})\). The equation has a form \(\partial_tu=\frac{1}{2}\partial^2_{xx}(\beta(u))\), and the general assumption on \(\beta \) are that it is monotone increasing and at most of linear growth. The probabilistic representation of the solution is established in terms of associated microscopic diffusion. One of the principal analytic tools is a result on uniqueness of distributional solutions of a linear PDE on \(\mathbb{R}^1\) with the coefficients that are possibly discontinuous. Some general properties of \(\beta\) are claimed here. Both non-degenerate and degenerate cases for \(\beta\) are considered.