Harnack inequality for parabolic equations with coefficients depending on time (Q6077510)

The classical Harnack inequality compares the supremum of a positive solution of the harmonic equation with its infimum. This important result is well generalised to the setting of parabolic partial differential equations. Two parabolic equations are considered in this paper. Namely; \[ \rho(x,t)u_t+Au = 0\] and \[(\rho(x,t)u)_t +Au = 0, \] where \(0<\rho(x,t) \in L^\infty\) and \(A\) is a suitable elliptic operator. The time-dependent coefficient in front of \(u\), which may degenerate to zero and not to \(+\infty\), makes the the models much more technical than the simplest case where \(\rho(x,t)=1\). A Harnack inequality is proved for this class of parabolic equation in a suitable De-Giorgi class. The result is applied to prove that solutions of the first equation above are Hölder continuous.