Continuity of weak solutions for quasilinear parabolic equations with strong degeneracy (Q2465561)

This paper concerns the continuity of bounded weak solutions of the Cauchy problem for quasilinear degenerate parabolic equations of the form \[ u_t-\Delta \varphi(u)=0, \] where \(\varphi\) is locally Lipschitz continuous and strictly monotone increasing on \(\mathbb R\) with \(\varphi(0) =0\). The equation may have strong degeneracy, that is, the set of zero points of \(\varphi'(\cdot)\) is permitted to have zero measure. The author proves that, if the initial data \(u_0 \in L^\infty(\mathbb R^N)\cap BV(\mathbb R^N)\) satisfies that \(\Delta \varphi(u_0) \geq 0\) in the sense of distributions, then the bounded weak solution is continuous. Since only bounded solutions are dealt with, one may assume that \(\varphi\) is globally Lipschitz continuous. The author introduces the regularized equations \[ u_{\varepsilon t} - \Delta \varphi_{0\varepsilon}(u_\varepsilon)=0. \] Then it follows from the assumptions on \(u_0\) that \(u_{\varepsilon t} = \Delta \varphi_{0\varepsilon}(u_\varepsilon) \geq 0\). By taking advantage of this fact together with the globally Lipschitz continuity of \(\varphi\), the author obtains an estimate for the modulus of continuity of the solution \(u\).