Intermediate asymptotics beyond homogeneity and self-similarity: long time behavior for \(u_t = \Delta\varphi(u)\) (Q2491097)

The authors consider the Cauchy problem for a general nonlinear diffusion equation, that is \[ (1)\quad \frac{\partial u}{\partial t}= \Delta\varphi(u) \qquad\qquad (2)\quad u(\cdot,0)=u_0, \] where \((x,t) \in\mathbb{R}^N\times\mathbb{R}_+\), \(u_0\) is nonnegative and belongs to \(L^1 (\mathbb{R}^N)\). Under suitable assumptions on \(\varphi\), the authors present the intermediate asymptotics for a very large class of nonhomogeneous nonlinearities \(\varphi\) for which long-time asymptotic cannot be characterized by self-similar solutions. The authors propose to study the behavior of the solution, performing a nonlinear time-dependent rescaling depending on the own temperature of the solution. More precisely, for a given solution (1)--(2) they study the long-time behaviour of \((\theta_u (t))^{N/2}u((\theta_uH))^{1/2}x,t)\), where \(\theta_u(t)\) is the so-called ``temperature'' of a solution of (1)--(2), that is \[ \theta_u(t):=\int_{\mathbb{R}^N} \frac{|x|^2}{2}u(x,t)\,dx. \] As a result the authors obtain a universal asymptotic profile characterized by fixed-points of certain maps in probability mesures spaces endowed with the Euclidean Wasserstein distance \(d_2\). The main ingredient here is the proof of a contraction property which is based on the \(L^1-L^\infty\) regularized effect.