The regularity of generalized solutions for the \(n\)-dimensional quasi-linear parabolic diffraction problems (Q960223)

Interior Hölder estimates are proved for first derivatives of generalized solutions to the \(n\)-dimensional quasi-linear parabolic diffraction problem. Suppose that \(\Omega \) is an open domain in \(\mathbb{R} ^{n}\) for \(n\geq 1\), and that \(\Gamma :=\{x:x_{n}=0\}\) partitions \(\Omega \) into two subdomains, \(D^{(1)}\) and \(D^{(2)}\). Let \(Q_{T}:=\Omega \times \left( 0,T\right) \) with \(S_{T}\) being the lateral surface of \(Q_{T}\) and \( \Gamma \times \left[ 0,T\right] \) the inner boundary of \(Q_{T}\). \(K_{\rho }\) is an arbitrary open ball of radius \(\rho \), and \(Q_{\rho }:=K_{\rho }\times \left( t^{0}-\rho ^{2},t^{0}\right) \). The multi-index \(p=\left( p_{1},p_{2},...,p_{n}\right)\) and the spacial gradient of \(u\) is \(u_{x}:=\left(u_{x_{1}},u_{x_{2}},\dots,u_{x_{n}}\right)\). Given the functions \(g(x,t)\) and \(u_{0}(x)\), suppose \(u\) satisfies the problem: \[ \begin{aligned} & u_{t}-\frac{d}{dx_{i}}a_{i}\left( x,t,u,u_{x}\right) +f\left( x,t,u,u_{x}\right) =0\text{ in }D^{(k)}\times \left( 0,T\right) \text{ for }k=1,2.\\ & \left[ u\right] _{\Gamma \times \left[ 0,T\right] }=0 \text{ and }\left[ \frac{\partial u}{\partial N}\right] _{\Gamma \times \left[ 0,T\right] }=0\\ & u(x,t)=g(x,t) \text{ on }S_{T} \text{ and } u(x,0)=u_{0}(x)\text{ in }\Omega \end{aligned} \] with \(\left[ v\right] _{\Gamma \times \left[ 0,T\right] }\) denoting the jump of the function \(v\) at the inner boundary, \[ \frac{\partial u}{\partial N }:=a_{i}\left( x,t,u,u_{x}\right) \cos (\mathbf{n},x_{i}) \] with \(\mathbf{n}\) denoting the unit normal to \(\Gamma \times \left[ 0,T\right] \). Let \(V_{2}^{1,0}\left(Q_{T}\right):=\{v:\int_{\Omega _{T}}\left(v^{2}+\sum v_{x_{k}}^{2}\right) dxdt<\infty\}\) Let \(W_{2}^{1,1}\left(Q_{T}\right):=\{v:\int_{\Omega _{T}}\left(v^{2}+v_{t}^{2}+\sum v_{x_{k}}^{2}\right) dxdt<\infty \}\). Then \(u\in V_{2}^{1,0}\left( Q_{T}\right)\) with \(M:=\text{vari}^{\left( 1\right) }\text{max}\left| u\right| \) on \(Q_{T}<\infty \) is a bounded generalized solution on \(Q_{T}\) of the above problem if, for all \( \eta \in W_{2}^{1,1}\left( Q_{T}\right) \), \(\eta \) vanishes on \(\partial \Omega \) and vari max \(\left| \eta \right| \) on \( Q_{T}<\infty \) , then \(\int_{\Omega }u\eta dx\mid _{0}^{t}+\int_{0}^{t}\int_{\Omega }\{-u\eta _{t}+a_{i}\left( x,t,u,u_{x}\right) \eta _{x_{i}}+f\left( x,t,u,u_{x}\right) \eta \}dxdt=0\) for each \(t\in \left[ 0,T\right] \). The main results of the paper are that, given several technical conditions on the \(a_{i}\left( x,t,v,p\right) \) and the \(f\left( x,t,v,p\right) \) and their partial derivatives, then, if \(u(x,t)\) is a generalized solution as described above so that, for any \(t^{\prime }>0\) and for some \(q>n\), \(\max \left( \left\| u_{t}\right\| _{L^{q/2}(\Omega )}+\left\| u_{t}\right\| _{L^{2}(\Omega )};t\in [ t^{\prime },T]\right) <\infty \), then for any \(\Omega ^{\prime }\) strictly interior to \(\Omega \), there exist positive constants \(\alpha ,\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},C\) so that for any \(0<t^{\prime }<T\), (i) \(u\) is Hölder continuous on \(\overline{\Omega ^{\prime }\times \left( t^{\prime },T\right)}\) and \(\rho ^{-\alpha }\text{osc}\left[ u,Q_{\rho }\right] \leq C\) for \(Q_{\rho }\subset \Omega ^{\prime }\times \left( t^{\prime },T\right)\) the following is true: (ii) For almost all \(t\in \left( t^{\prime },T\right) \) the first derivatives \(u_{x_{i}}\) for \(i=1,2,\dots,n\), are Hölder continuous with respect to \(x\) in \(\overline{\Omega ^{\prime}\times D^{(k)}}\) and \(\max \{\left| u_{x_{i}}\right| +\rho ^{-\alpha _{1}}osc_{x}[u_{x_{i}},K_{\rho }\cap D^{(k)}];K_{\rho }\}\leq C\) for \( K_{\rho }\subset \Omega ^{\prime }\), \(k=1,2\); \(u_{t}\) is Hölder continuous in \(\overline{\Omega ^{\prime }\times \left( t^{\prime},T\right) }\) and \(\max \{\left| u_{x_{i}}\right| +\rho ^{-\alpha_{2}}\text{osc}[u_{t},Q_{\rho }]\leq C;Q_{\rho }\}\) for \(Q_{\rho }\subset \Omega ^{\prime}\times \left( t^{\prime },T\right)\). (iii) The second generalized derivatives \(u_{x_{i}x_{j}}\) and \(u_{tx_{i}}\) exist in \(L^{2}\left( \Omega ^{\prime }\times D^{(k)}\right) \times \left( t^{\prime },T\right) )\) and \(L^{2}(\Omega ^{\prime }\times \left( t^{\prime },T\right) )\) respectively, and so that \(\int_{t^{\prime }}^{T}\int_{\Omega ^{\prime }\cap D^{(k)}}\left| u_{xx}\right| ^{2}dxdt\) and \( \int_{t^{\prime }}^{T}\int_{\Omega ^{\prime }\cap D^{(k)}}\left| u_{tx}\right| ^{2}dxdt\) are bounded by a constant for \(k=1,2\) and for \( 1\leq i,j\leq n\). The proof of these results is by a series of estimates on local Hölder norms and uses Steklov averaging methods.