Comparison results for parabolic differential equations at resonance (Q2266814)

By standard elementary arguments the authors prove several comparison theorems for a semilinear parabolic equation with periodic or homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions. A typical example is the following result. Let \(I=[0,1]\), \(J=[0,2\pi]\) and let \(g(t,x,u,v)\in C[J\times I\times {\mathbb{R}}\times {\mathbb{R}},{\mathbb{R}}]\) satisfy the following condition: For any \(u,v\in C^{1,2}[J\times I,{\mathbb{R}}]\) the functions \(G(t,x):=g_ u(t,x,u(t,x),v(t,x)),\quad g_ v(t,x,u(t,x),v(t,x))\) are continuous, G(t,x)\(\leq 0\) and for any fixed t, G(t,x) does not vanish identically on I. Moreover, assume that \(m,\beta \in C^{1,2}[J\times I,{\mathbb{R}}]\) satisfy the following conditions for \(0<t\leq 2\pi\), \(0\leq x\leq 1:\) m(o,x)\(\leq m(2\pi,x)\), \(m(t,o)=m(t,1)\), \(m_ x(t,o)\geq m_ x(t,1)\), \(m_ t-m_{xx}\leq g(t,x,m,m_ x)\); \(\beta\) (o,x)\(\geq \beta (2\pi,x)\), \(\beta (t,o)=\beta (t,1)\), \(\beta_ x(t,o)\leq \beta_ x(t,1)\), \(\beta_ t-\beta_{xx}\geq g(t,x,\beta,\beta_ x)\). Then m(t,x)\(\leq \beta (t,x)\) on \(J\times I\).