An ill-posed estimate of positive solutions of a degenerate nonlinear parabolic equation (Q675757)

The authors consider the non-characteristic Cauchy problem for a degenerate nonlinear parabolic equation and derive an ill-posed estimate of positive solutions in terms of the bounds on the Cauchy data and the solutions. For \(a>0\), define the domain \(G_a= \{(x_1,x_2, \dots, x_N,t);\;0<x_n< a^2-t^2- \sum^{n-1}_{i=1} x^2_i\}\), and let \(S_a \) be the curved portion of the boundary of \(G_a\), \(T_a\) be the flat portion of the boundary with \(x_N=0\). The authors consider the following equation in \(G_a\): \[ u^\alpha \partial_tu = \Delta u+F(x,t,u), \tag{*} \] where \(\alpha>0\), and it is assumed that \(|F(x,t,u) |\leq K|u|\) for a positive constant \(K\). Transforming the equation (*) by Holmgren's transformation they obtain the following Theorem. Let \(\alpha>0\) and \(0<a<1\). Let \(u\) be a strong solution of the transformed equation in \(D_a\) and \(u\geq 0\) there. Then, if \(\int_{\Gamma_a} (u+u^{1+ \alpha}+ |\nabla u|) d\sigma\leq \varepsilon\), \(\int_{L_a} (u^{1 +\alpha}+ |\nabla u|) d\sigma\leq M\), and \(M\geq\varepsilon \exp [4\sqrt 2a^2 (N^2+ K+ (|u |_\infty)^{2 \alpha})^{1/2}]\), the inequality \[ \int_{D_{a/ \sqrt 2}} udxdt\leq \kappa N \varepsilon^{1/2} M^{1/2} \] holds, where \(\kappa\) is a positive constant independent of \(a, \alpha,N,K\), \(|u|_\infty\), \(M\) and \(\varepsilon\). Here \(D_a\), \(\Gamma_a\) and \(L_a\) are the transformed domain and boundaries of \(G_a\), \(S_a\) and \(T_a\) by Holmgren's transformation respectively. For \(N=1\) the authors obtain a finer result in the second part of the paper.