Counterintuitive dependence of temporal asymptotics on initial decay in a nonlocal degenerate parabolic equation arising in game theory (Q2327972)

In the present paper, the authors consider the existence and properties of positive solutions to the Cauchy problem associated to the nonlocal parabolic equation \[ \partial_t u = u\Delta u + u\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}|\nabla u|^2 dx. \] Such equations arise when modeling ``the evolution of the density distribution of frequencies with which different strategies are pursued in a population obeying the rules of replicator dynamics in a continuous infinite dimensional setting.'' As their first result, the authors establish existence of global positive classical solutions which for all times remain probability measures if \(u_0\in C(\mathbb{R}^n)\cap L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) for some \(p\in(0,1)\) with \(\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}u_0 dx=1\). The main result of the paper consists in ``revealing a dependence of the large time behavior of these solutions on the spatial decay of the initial data.'' In particular it is shown that the function \[\mathcal{E}(t):=\int_0^t\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}|\nabla u(x,t)|^2 dx, t>0,\] always grows in a sublinear manner, i.e., \[\frac{\mathcal{E}(t)}{t}\to 0, \ as\ \ t\to+\infty.\] Moreover, fast decay rates of \(u_0\) at infinity enforce rapid growth of \(\mathcal{E}\). Various examples demonstrate the sharpness of the sublinear growth rate of \(\mathcal{E}\).