On solutions to nonlinear reaction-diffusion-convection equations with degenerate diffusion (Q5929873)

The authors present some results about the regularity of solutions to the general reaction-diffusion-convection equation \[ u_t=\Delta G(u)+\sum_{i=1}^N [f_i(u)]_{x_i}+h(u). \] The introduction of the paper gives a brief account of the already known regularity properties of the solutions of the equations falling in this general class as well as some examples of such equations: flow in porous media, the heat equation with transfer, the Stefan problem, etc. In the first part of the paper the special case \(G(x)=x^m\), \(h\equiv 0\) is examined. The authors show that, under suitable assumptions on the convective term \(f\), for each non-negative initial condition there exists a weak solution such that some powers of the solution are Lipschitz continuous functions. The exponents are explicitly given in terms of \(m\) and of the space dimension. The result is proved by means of perturbation methods and the maximum principle. In the second part the authors study the general nonlinear diffusion equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions in an annulus. They show the existence of a bounded radial solution \(u\) such that \(G(u)\) is jointly Lipschitz continuous in space and Hölder continuous with exponent \(1/2\) in time. The theorem is true for bounded as well as Lipschitz continuous initial data and for smooth and nondecreasing \(G\). A consequence of such theorem is an estimate of the temperature in the classical two-phase Stefan problem. In the third part of the paper, the authors study the general reaction-diffusion-convection equation with Dirichlet boundary condition in the space dimension one. They show again that \(G(u)\) is jointly Lipschitz continuous in space and Hölder continuous with exponent \(1/2\) in time. The claim is proved under the assumption that the set of parabolic degeneracy, that is the set of points where \(G'(x)=0\), has measure zero.