On the dynamics of a class of nonclassical parabolic equations (Q820042)

This paper is mainly concerned with the dynamical behavior of the following nonclassical parabolic equation: \[ \begin{aligned} u_t - \mu \Delta u_t - \Delta u + g(u) = f(x), &\quad\text{in}\;\Omega \times \mathbb R_ + ,\tag{1}\\ u({t,x}) = 0, &\quad\text{for}\;x \in \partial \Omega ,\tag{2}\\ u({0,x}) = u_0 , &\quad\text{for}\;x \in \Omega,\tag{3}\end{aligned} \] where \(\Omega \) is an open bounded set of \(\mathbb R^n \) with sufficiently regular boundary \(\partial \Omega\), \(\mu \in [0,1].\) Nonclassical parabolic equations arise as models to describe physical phenomena such as non-Newtonian flow, soil mechanics and heat conduction, etc. The main aim of this paper is as follows. First, some uniform decay estimates for (1)--(3) which are independent of \(\mu \in [{0,1}]\) are established. These estimates are particularly useful in understanding the effects of the term \(\mu \Delta u_t \) to the dynamics of the equation as \(\mu \to 0\). Secondly, the continuous dependence of solutions of (1)--(3) on \(\mu \) as \(\mu \to 0\) is considered. Let \(R,T > 0\). Then it is shown that for some constant \(C_T (R) > 0\), \(\| {S_\mu (t)u_0 - S_0 (t)u_0} \| _1 \leq C_T (R)\sqrt \mu, \forall t \in [{0,T}], \) for any \(u_0 \in H^2 (\Omega) \cap H_0^1 (\Omega)\) with \(\| {u_0} \| _2 \leq R,\) where \(S_\mu (t)\) is the solution semigroup of (1)--(3). Finally, the existence of the global attractor \(A_\mu \) for the system is established and the upper semicontinuity of \(A_\mu \) at \(\mu = 0\) is proved.