On a class of elliptic-parabolic equations on unbounded intervals (Q5939476)

The authors study the (degenerate) parabolic equation \[ { \partial u\over\partial t}(x,t)={x(x+1) \over 2}\lambda(x) {\partial^2 u\over \partial t^2}(x,t)\;(x>0,t\geq 0),\tag{*} \] where \(\lambda\in C_b([0,\infty))\), \(0<\lambda_0 \leq\lambda(x)\leq 1\) \((x>0)\), subject to boundary conditions \[ \lim_{x\to 0+} {x(x+1)\over 2}\lambda(x) {\partial^2u\over\partial t^2}(x,t)= \lim_{x\to\infty} {1\over 1+x^m}{x(x+1)\over 2}\lambda(x) {\partial^2 u\over \partial t^2}(x,t)= 0\;(t\geq 0). \] It is shown that the operator \(A_{\lambda,m}\) associated with the right hand side of (*) and the boundary conditions generates a positive \(C_0\)-semigroup on the polynomially weighted space \[ E^0_m: =\left \{f\in C\bigl([0,\infty) \bigr):\lim_{x\to\infty} {f(x)\over 1+x^m} =0\right\}, \] for \(m\geq 2\). The authors show the existence of a Markov process corresponding to the semigroup and study properties of both the semigroup and the Markov process.