Maximal regularity for evolution equations governed by non-autonomous forms (Q462165)

The authors study non-autonomous Cauchy problems of the form \(\dot{u}(t) + \mathcal{A}(t)u(t) = f(t)\) on some Hilbert space \(H\), where the operators \(\mathcal{A}(t)\) are associated to a family of sesquilinear forms \(a(t, \cdot, \cdot): V \times V \to \mathbb{C}\). It is known under very mild assumptions on the forms \(a\) (strong measurability and uniform boundedness and coercivity in \(t\)) by a classical result of Lions that for every \(f \in L^2(0, T; V')\) and every initial value \(u_0 \in H\) there exists a unique solution \(u \in L^2(0,T;V) \cap H^1(0,T;V')\) of the problem. In the treatment of quasilinear problems, it is a central question whether this solution has stronger regularity properties. In fact, a classical problem also due to Lions asks under the additional assumption that all forms \(a(t, \cdot, \cdot)\) are symmetric whether for \(f \in L^2(0,T;H)\) and \(u_0 \in V\) the solutions of the non-autonomous problem satisfy maximal regularity in \(H\), i.e., the solutions lie in \(H^1(0,T;H) \cap L^2(0,T;V)\). In this article, the authors establish such maximal regularity results under stronger regularity assumptions on the mapping \(t \mapsto a(t, \cdot, \cdot)\) than in Lions' problem. It is shown that if \(t \mapsto a(t,\cdot, \cdot)\) is piecewise Lipschitz continuous with finitely many jumps, then one has maximal regularity in \(H\). Furthermore, it is shown that the solution lies in \(C([0,T];V)\). More generally, the results remain true for certain multiplicative perturbations of \(\mathcal{A}(t)\), the symmetric forms \(a(t,\cdot,\cdot)\) can be replaced by non-symmetric forms uniformly satisfying the Kato square root property and \(a(t,\cdot,\cdot)\) can further be additively perturbed by a non-autonomous form \(b(t,\cdot,\cdot): V \times H \to \mathbb{C}\). In the last section, it is illustrated how the results can be used to establish the existence of solutions for quasilinear problems.