The Cauchy problem for a tenth-order thin film equation. I. bifurcation of oscillatory fundamental solutions (Q382056)

This article deals with the global-in-time behavior of solutions of the tenth-order quasilinear evolution equation of parabolic type, called the thin film equation. The authors are interested in the mathematical analysis of degenerate parabolic equations of the tenth-order, without looking at the applications. The analysis performed in this work provide some new techniques in obtaining qualitative results for these particular type of PDEs. First, the authors introduce global self-similar solutions of the considered equation which include a corresponding nonlinear eigenvalue problem. The main approach consists in passing the exponent \(n\) of the degenerate mobility coefficient from the original equation to the zero-limit, reducing the original problem to the classical poly-harmonic equation of the tenth-order. The obtained nonlinear eigenvalue problem reduces then to a standard Hermitian-type linear eigenvalue problem, which is carefully treated in this article. The authors showed analytically that, at least for small \(n\) the corresponding nonlinear eigenvalue problem admits a countable set of fundamental solutions which consist of the eigenvalue-eigenfunction pairs. Moreover, the authors present numerical results for eigenfunctions with explicit eigenvalues. These are the eigenfunctions in the \(n=0\) case, which provide the starting points of the \(n\)-branch solutions. Finally, the eigenfunctions in the mass conservative case are also presented for selected \(n\), which constitutes the first \(n\)-branch.