Existence of solutions to degenerate parabolic equations via the Monge-Kantorovich theory (Q2504037)

Doubly degenerate parabolic equations that describe a number of physical and biological processes are considered. For example, they are used to model the evolution of a fluid in a certain domain: porous-medium and Fokker-Planck equations. The main goal of the work consists in answers to the two questions. Under what conditions the equations do have unique weak solutions? When do these solutions converge asymptotically to an equilibrium? To substantiate the answers to these questions, the author exploits the variational method. At that, the considered equation is interpreted as a steepest descent of the internal energy functional against the Monge-Kantorovich work. This requires fewer uniform convexity assumptions than those imposed by Alt and Luckhaus in their pioneering work.