No label defined (Q3129018)

The authors study the abstract Cauchy problem associated to the operator \(Au=\nabla(\alpha\nabla u)\) with Wentzell boundary conditions in an open bounded set \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n\) with smooth boundary. The function \(\alpha\) is continuous, \(\alpha>0\) in \(\Omega\) and \(\alpha|_{\partial\Omega}=0\). The problem is reduced to a suitable Dirichlet problem, and it is proven that \(A\) generates an analytic semigroup in \(L^2(\Omega)\) with weight \({1/\alpha}\). Under additional assumptions on \(\alpha\), \(D(A)\) is completely characterized. Analogous generation results are proven in \(L^2(0,1)\). Also results on the analyticity of the semigroup generated by \(A\) are proven in \(L^p(\Omega)\) with weight \(\alpha^{{1/p}}\) with \(1<p<{n\over n-1}\), (\(p\) arbitrary if \(n=1\)). Finally, the following problem is studied: \(v_t=\alpha v_{xx}\), \(t>0\), \(0<x<1\), \(v(x,0)=u_0(x)\), \(0<x<1\), \(v(0,t)=v(1,t)=0\), \(t>0\); where \(\alpha\in C([0,1])\), \(\alpha(0)=\alpha(1)=0\), \(\alpha(x)>0\), \(0<x<1\). It is proven that the above problem, treated as an abstract Cauchy problem in \(L^1(0,1)\), has a strong solution in the space \(L^1(0,1)\) in terms of semigroup theory. The semigroup generated by the corresponding operator has a smoothing property on the initial data of the problem.