Uniqueness and nonuniqueness of solutions to parabolic problems with singular coefficients (Q550373)

The authors investigate the uniqueness and nonuniqueness of solutions to semilinear degenerate parabolic problems, with possibly unbounded coefficients, of the following form: \[ \begin{cases} \mathcal{L}u-cu-\partial _tu=f\left( x,t,u\right) ,\,\,\,&\text{in}\,\Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) =:Q_T \\ u=g,\,&\text{in}\,\mathcal{R}\times \left( 0,T\right] \\ u=u_0,\,&\text{in}\,\left( \Omega \cup \mathcal{R}\right) \times \left\{ 0\right\}. \end{cases} \tag{1} \] Here \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n\) is an open connected set with boundary \( \partial \Omega \), \(\mathcal{R}\) is a subset of the boundary (regular boundary), \(\mathcal{S}=\partial \Omega \backslash \mathcal{R}\) (singular boundary), \(\mathcal{L}\) is formally defined as follows: \[ \mathcal{L}u\equiv \sum\limits_{i,j=1}^na_{ij}\left( x\right) \frac{\partial ^2u}{\partial x_i\partial x_j}+\sum\limits_{i=1}^nb_i\left( x\right) \frac{ \partial u}{\partial x_i}. \] The authors consider also the following generalization of problem (1): \[ \begin{cases} \mathcal{L}u-cu-\partial _tu=f\left( x,t,u\right) ,\,\,\,&\text{in}\,Q_T \\ u=g,\,&\text{in}\,\left( \mathcal{R}\cup \mathcal{S}_1\right) \times \left( 0,T\right] \\ u=u_0,\,&\text{in}\,\left( \Omega \cup \mathcal{R}\cup \mathcal{S}_1\right) \times \left\{ 0\right\} \end{cases} \] with \(S_1\subseteq S\). For this problem some uniqueness criteria are proved. These criteria depend on the existence of subsolutions to the elliptic problem: \[ \begin{cases} \mathcal{L}U-cU=\mu U,\,\,\,&\text{in}\,\Omega ,(\mu \geq 0) \\ U=0,\,&\text{in}\,\mathcal{R}. \end{cases} \] Sufficient conditions for non-uniqueness of bounded solutions to problem (1) are provided. As an application of the above results, the authors study the uniqueness and non-uniqueness of bounded solutions of the following Cauchy problem in the hyperbolic space: \[ \begin{cases} \partial _tu=a\Delta _gu+f\left( x,t,u\right) ,\,\,\,&\text{in}\,\mathbb{H}^n\times \left( 0,T\right) \\ u=u_0,\,&\text{in}\,\mathbb{H}^n\times \left\{ 0\right\}, \end{cases} \] where \(\mathbb{H}^n\) is the \(n-\)dimensional hyperbolic space (\(n\geq 2\)), \( \Delta _g\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator in \(\mathbb{H}^n\), and \(a\) is a positive function of the space variables.