Optimal behavior of the support of the solutions to a class of degenerate parabolic systems (Q500879)

The very interesting paper under review deals with the qualitative behaviour of weak solutions to the Cauchy problem for doubly nonlinear parabolic systems of the form \[ \begin{cases} \displaystyle \dfrac{\partial u_j}{\partial t}=\sum_{i=1}^N \dfrac{\partial}{\partial x_i}\left( |\mathbf{U}|^{m-1}|\nabla \text\textbf{U}|^{p-2} \dfrac{\partial u_j}{\partial x_i}\right),\quad & j=1,\ldots,l,\;\text{in}\;S_T=\mathbb{R}^N\times (0,T),\\ u_j(x,0)=u_{0j}(x),\quad & j=1,\ldots,l, \end{cases} \] where \(\mathbf{U}=(u_1,\ldots, u_l),\) \(l\geq1,\) \(|\nabla \mathbf{U}|=(\sum_{i=1}^l |\nabla u_i|^2)^{1/2},\) and \(\mathbf{U}_0(x)=(u_{01}(x),\ldots,u_{0l}(x))\in L^1(\mathbb{R}^N).\) The attention of the authors is focused on the behaviour of the support of the solution in the degenerate case when \[ p>1,\quad p+m>3. \] It is proved that the finite propagation of the support occurs exactly as in the case of the corresponding degenerate equation and an optimal estimate of the propagation speed is derived by means of sharp \(L^\infty\)-estimates. Actually, the \(L^\infty\)-bounds are derived under more general assumptions on the exponents \[ p>1,\quad N(p + m-3) + p > 0, \] which cover also the singular case \((p+m<3)\) and that of the Trudinger equation \((p+m=3).\) More precisely, in this case the authors prove that each weak solution \(\mathbf{U}\) of the Cauchy problem in \(S_\infty\) satisfies the estimate \[ \|\mathbf{U}(\cdot,t)\|_{L^\infty(\mathbb{R}^N)}\leq C(N,l,m)t^{-N/\lambda} \|\text\textbf{U}_0\|_{L^1(\mathbb{R}^N)}^{p/\lambda}\quad \text{for all }t>0, \] where \(\lambda=N(p + m-3) + p\) is the Barenblatt exponent, and the bound is sharp even in the case of a single equation. For what concerns the degenerate case (\(p>1\) and \(p+m>3\)), the authors derive optimal estimates about the speed of propagation of the support by proving that given a weak solution \(\mathbf{U}\) in \(S_\infty\) with \(\text{supp\,\textbf U}_0\subset B_{R_0}(0)=\{x\in \mathbb{R}^N:\;|x|<R_0\},\) then for each \(t>0\) one has \[ \inf\left\{r>0:\;|\mathbf{U}(x,t)|=0,\;x\in \mathbb{R}^N\setminus B_r(0)\right\} \leq 4R_0+C(N,l,m)t^{1/\lambda} \|\text\textbf{U}_0\|_{L^1(\mathbb{R}^N)}^{(p+m-3)/\lambda}. \]