Periodic solutions of quasilinear parabolic systems with nonlinear boundary conditions (Q2267568)

The authors deal with the following quasilinear parabolic system with nonlinear boundary conditions \[ \left.\begin{aligned} u_{it}-\nabla \cdot (a_iD_i(u_i) \nabla u_i) + \mathbf{b}_i\cdot (D_i(u_i) \nabla u_i) =f_i(t,x,\mathbf{u})\;(t>0,\;x\in \Omega )&{}\\ D_i(u_i )\frac{\partial u_i}{\partial \nu }=g_i(t,x, \mathbf{u})\;(t>0,\;x\in \partial \Omega )&{} \\ u_i(x,0) =u_i(T,x) \;(x\in \Omega)&{}\end{aligned}\right\}\quad i=1,\dots,N,\tag{1} \] where \(\mathbf{u}\equiv \mathbf{u}(t,x) =(u_1(t,x),\dots,u_N(t,x) )\), \(\Omega \in \mathbb{R}^n\) is a smooth domain with smooth boundary \(\partial \Omega\) and \(a_i\equiv a_i(t,x)\), \(\mathbf{b}_i\equiv \mathbf{b} _i(t,x) =(b_i^{(1) },\dots,b_i^{(n) })\), \(D_i(u_i)\), \(f_i(t,x,\mathbf{u})\) and \( g_i(t,x,\mathbf{u}) \) are \(T\)-periodic in \(t\) functions satisfying the following conditions {\parindent=8mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] \(a_i(t,x)\geq a_i^{*}>0\); \item[(ii)] \(D_i(u_i) >0\) for \(u_i>0\) and \(D_i(0) \geq 0\); \item[(iii)] \(\frac{\partial f_i}{ \partial u_j}(\cdot,\mathbf{u}) \geq 0\), \(\frac{\partial g_i}{ \partial u_j}(\cdot,\mathbf{u}) \geq 0\) for \(j\neq i\). \end{itemize}} In these conditions, the authors, using the method of upper and lower solutions, show the existence of maximal and minimal periodic solutions of (1). Furthermore they apply the results to a Volterra-Lotka competition model for the existence of nonconstant periodic solutions.