Global solutions for superlinear parabolic equations involving the biharmonic operator for initial data with optimal slow decay

We are interested in stability/instability of the zero steady state of the superlinear parabolic equation u _t + Δ² u = |u| ^p-1 u in , where the exponent is considered in the “super-Fujita” range p > 1 + 4/n. We determine the corresponding limiting growth at infinity for the initial data giving rise to global bounded solutions. In the supercritical case p > (n + 4)/(n−4) this is related to the asymptotic behaviour of positive steady states, which the authors have recently studied. Moreover, it is shown that the solutions found for the parabolic problem decay to 0 at rate t ^−1/(p-1).