Asymptotic behavior and regularity properties of strongly nonlinear parabolic equations (Q2332915)

The author studies a class of nonlinear parabolic problems including the \(p\)-Laplacian. The initial datum and the forcing term are allowed to be summable functions or Radon measures. The author shows these equations have regularizing properties, and the behavior in time of solutions is studied. Decay estimates are shown to hold also for nonzero reaction terms. Finally, the autonomous case is considered. More specifically, consider \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N\) with \(\partial\Omega\) regular, \(N>2\), \(T>0\), \(\Omega_T=\Omega\times(0,T)\), and \(\Gamma=\partial\Omega\times(0,T)\). The problem investigated is \[ u_t-\text{div}(a(x,t,\nabla u))=f(x,t) \text{ in } \Omega_T, \] \[ u=0 \text{ on } \Gamma\] \[ u(x,0)=u_0(x) \text{ on } \Omega. \] The function \(a(x,t,\xi):\Omega\times(0,T)\times\mathbb{R}^N\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^N\) is a Caratheodody function that is assumed to satisfy certain structure conditions. Under the assumption that \(f\in L^m(0,T;L^s(\Omega))\), \(s\ge 1, m\ge 1\) and \(u_0\in L^1(\Omega)\), the author proves existence of a solution which immediately increases its regularity, reaching the same summability properties of the solution \(u^0\) of the problem \[ (u^0)_t-\text{div}(a(x,t,\nabla u^0))=f(x,t) \ \text{ in } \Omega_T \] \[ u^0=0 \ \text{ on } \Gamma\] \[ u^0(x,0)=0 \ \text{ on }\Omega. \] The existence of a global solution \(u\) satisfying certain bounds for almost every \(t>0\), is proved. Moreover, the asymptotic behavior in time of \(u(t)\) is described and it is shown that \[ \lim\limits_{t\rightarrow\infty}||u(t)-u^0||_{L^{\infty}(\Omega)}=0. \] Finally, the autonomous case \[ a(x,t,\nabla u)=a(x,\nabla u), \qquad f(x,t)=f(x) \] is also studied. The author proves that for every \(u_0\in L^1(\Omega)\) and \(f\in L^1(\Omega)\), there exists a global solution \(u(t)\) satisfying \[ \lim\limits_{t\rightarrow\infty}||u(t)-w||_{L^{\infty}(\Omega)}=0, \] where \(w\) is the solution of \[ -\text{div}(a(x,\nabla w))=f(x) \text{ in } \Omega\] \[ w=0 \text{ on } \partial\Omega. \] Lastly, the previous results are investigated in the more general case of Radon measures as initial data.