Spherically symmetric internal layers for activator-inhibitor systems II. Stability and symmetry breaking bifurcations

A reaction-diffusion system of activator-inhibitor type is studied on an N-dimensional ball with the homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions. We analyze the stability property of the spherically symmetric solutions and their symmetry-breaking bifurcations into layer solutions which are not spherically symmetric.     

Evolutionary weighted p-Laplacian with boundary degeneracy

The paper concerns the well-posedness problem of an evolutionary weighted p-Laplacian with boundary degeneracy. Different from the classical theory for linear equations, it is shown that the degenerate portion of the boundary should be decomposed into two parts: the strongly degenerate boundary on which the equation exhibits hyperbolic characteristics and the weakly degenerate boundary on which the equation still exhibits parabolic characteristics. We formulate reasonably the boundary value condition and establish the existence and uniqueness theorems.     

A free boundary problem modeling the cell cycle and cell movement in multicellular tumor spheroids

This paper deals with a mathematical model describing the cell cycle dynamics and chemotactic driven cell movement in a multicellular tumor spheroid. Tumor cells consist of two types of cells: proliferating cells and quiescent cells, which have different chemotactic responses to an extracellular nutrient supply. The model is a free boundary problem for a nonlinear system of reaction-diffusion-advection equations, where the free boundary is the outer boundary of the spheroid. The free boundary condition is quite novel due to different velocity of two types of cells. The global existence and uniqueness of solutions to the model is proved. The proof is based on a fixed point argument, together with the Lp-theory for parabolic equations with the third boundary condition.     

Strong full bounded solutions of nonlinear parabolic equations with nonlinear boundary conditions

We study the existence of (generalized) bounded solutions existing for all times for nonlinear parabolic equations with nonlinear boundary conditions on a domain that is bounded in space and unbounded in time (the entire real line). We give a counterexample which shows that a (weak) maximum principle does not hold in general for linear problems defined on the entire real line in time. We consider a boundedness condition at minus infinity to establish (one-sided) L^∞-a priori estimates for solutions to linear boundary value problems and derive a weak maximum principle which is valid on the entire real line in time. We then take up the case of nonlinear problems with (possibly) nonlinear boundary conditions. By using comparison techniques, some (delicate) a priori estimates obtained herein, and nonlinear approximation methods, we prove the existence and, in some instances, positivity and uniqueness of strong full bounded solutions existing for all times.     

On a coupled nonlinear singular thermoelastic system

For a coupled nonlinear singular system of thermoelasticity with one space dimension, we consider its initial boundary value problem on an interval. For one of the unknowns a classical condition is replaced by a nonlocal constraint of integral type. Because of the presence of a memory term in one of the equations and the presence of a weighted boundary integral condition, the solution requires a delicate set of techniques. We first solve a particular case of the given nonlinear problem by using a functional analysis approach. On the basis of the results obtained and an iteration method we establish the well-posedness of solutions in weighted Sobolev spaces.     

Boundary layers for compressible Navier-Stokes equations with outflow boundary condition

In this paper, we study the asymptotic relation between the solutions to the initial boundary value problem of the one-dimensional compressible full Navier-Stokes equations with outflow boundary condition and the associated Euler equations. We assume all the three characteristics to the corresponding Euler equations are all negative up to some small time, then we prove the existence and the stability of the boundary layers as long as the strength of the boundary layers is suitably small.     

Uniqueness of solutions to degenerate parabolic and elliptic equations in weighted Lebesgue spaces

We investigate uniqueness for degenerate parabolic and elliptic equations in the class of solutions belonging to weighted Lebesgue spaces and not satisfying any boundary condition. The uniqueness result that we provide relies on the existence of suitable positive supersolutions of the adjoint equations. Under proper assumptions on the behavior at the boundary of the coefficients of the operator, such supersolutions are constructed, mainly using the distance function from the boundary.     

Positive solutions of quasilinear parabolic systems with Dirichlet boundary condition

Coupled systems for a class of quasilinear parabolic equations and the corresponding elliptic systems, including systems of parabolic and ordinary differential equations are investigated. The aim of this paper is to show the existence, uniqueness, and asymptotic behavior of time-dependent solutions. Also investigated is the existence of positive maximal and minimal solutions of the corresponding quasilinear elliptic system. The elliptic operators in both systems are allowed to be degenerate in the sense that the density-dependent diffusion coefficients Di(ui) may have the property Di(0)=0 for some or all i=1,…,N, and the boundary condition is ui=0. Using the method of upper and lower solutions, we show that a unique global classical time-dependent solution exists and converges to the maximal solution for one class of initial functions and it converges to the minimal solution for another class of initial functions; and if the maximal and minimal solutions coincide then the steady-state solution is unique and the time-dependent solution converges to the unique solution. Applications of these results are given to three model problems, including a scalar polynomial growth problem, a coupled system of polynomial growth problem, and a two component competition model in ecology.     

Hölder continuity of weak solutions of a class of linear equations with boundary degeneracy

This paper deals with a class of linear equations with boundary degeneracy. According to the degenerate ratio, the equations are divided into weakly degenerate ones and strongly degenerate ones, which should be supplemented by different Dirichlet boundary value conditions. After establishing some necessary existence, nonexistence and comparison principles, we investigate the optimal Hölder continuity of weak solutions in these two cases utilizing the Harnack inequality and the Morrey theorem, respectively.     

Linear and nonlinear heat equations in $L^q_\delta$ spaces and universal bounds for global solutions

We develop a theory of both linear and nonlinear heat equations in the weighted Lebesgue spaces , where is the distance to the boundary. In particular, we prove an optimal estimate for the heat semigroup, and we establish sharp results on local existence-uniqueness and local nonexistence of solutions for semilinear heat equations with initial values in those spaces. This theory enables us to obtain new types of results concerning positive global solutions of superlinear parabolic problems. Namely, under certain assumptions, we prove that any global solution is uniformly bounded for by a universal constant, independent of the initial data. In all previous results, the bounds for global solutions were depending on the initial data. Received March 15, 2000 / Accepted October 18, 2000 / Published online February 5, 2001     

Roles of weight functions in a nonlinear nonlocal parabolic system

This paper deals with a semilinear parabolic system with coupled nonlinear nonlocal sources subject to weighted nonlocal Dirichlet boundary conditions. We establish the conditions for global and non-global solutions. It is interesting to observe that the weight functions for the nonlocal Dirichlet boundary conditions play substantial roles in determining not only whether the solutions are global or non-global, but also whether (for the non-global solutions) the blowing up occurs for any positive initial data or just for large ones.     

A priori estimate for non-uniform elliptic equations

A priori estimate for non-uniform elliptic equations with periodic boundary conditions is concerned. The domain considered consists of two sub-regions, a connected high permeability region and a disconnected matrix block region with low permeability. Let ? denote the size ratio of one matrix block to the whole domain. It is shown that in the connected high permeability sub-region, the Hölder and the Lipschitz estimates of the non-uniform elliptic solutions are bounded uniformly in ?. But Hölder gradient estimate and Lp estimate of the second order derivatives of the solutions in general are not bounded uniformly in ?.     

Stability of perturbed nonlinear parabolic equations with Sturmian property

We study stability of an equilibrium f∗ of autonomous dynamical systems under asymptotically small perturbations of the equation. We show that such stability takes place if the domain of attraction of the equilibrium f∗ contains a one-parametric ordered family . In the stability analysis we need a special S-relation (a kind of “restricted partial ordering”) to be preserved relative to the family . This S-relation is inherited from the Sturmian zero set properties for linear parabolic equations. As main applications, we prove stability of the self-similar blow-up behaviour for the porous medium equation, the p-Laplacian equation and the dual porous medium equation in with nonlinear lower-order perturbations. For such one-dimensional parabolic equations the S-relation is Sturm's Theorem on the nonincrease of the number of intersections between the solutions and particular solutions with initial data in . This Sturmian property plays a key role and is true for the unperturbed PME, but is not true for perturbed equations.     

Blowing up boundary conditions for a nonlocal nonlinear diffusion equation in several space dimensions

We analyze boundary value problems prescribing Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions for a nonlocal nonlinear diffusion operator which is analogous to the porous medium equation in a bounded smooth domain Ω∈R^N with N≥1. First, we prove existence and uniqueness of solutions and the validity of a comparison principle for these problems. Next, we impose boundary data that blow up in finite time and study the behavior of the solutions.     

Global solutions and self-similar solutions of semilinear parabolic equations with nonlinear gradient terms

In this paper we consider the Cauchy problem of semilinear parabolic equations with nonlinear gradient terms a(x)|u|^q−1u|∇u|^p. We prove the existence of global solutions and self-similar solutions for small initial data. Moreover, for a class of initial data we show that the global solutions behave asymptotically like self-similar solutions as t→∞.     

Global existence for fully parabolic boundary value problems

We present some results on the global existence of classical solutions for quasilinear parabolic equations with nonlinear dynamic boundary conditions in bounded domains with a smooth boundary.     

Blow-up phenomena for a system of semilinear heat equations with nonlinear boundary flux

This paper deals with the blow-up for a system of semilinear r-Laplace heat equations with nonlinear boundary flux. It is shown that, under certain conditions on the nonlinearities and data, blow-up will occur at some finite time, and when blow-up does occur upper and lower bounds for the blow-up time are obtained.     

Weak solutions for nonlocal boundary value problems with low regularity data

This paper concerns the existence and uniqueness of weak solutions for elliptic and parabolic equations under nonlocal boundary conditions, based on maximal regularity. It also gives the positivity of solutions which can be used in monotone iteration methods. As an application, the results are used to discuss some specific nonlocal problems.     

Stability of hyperbolic–parabolic mixed type equations with partial boundary condition

In this paper, we are concerned with the hyperbolic–parabolic mixed type equations with the non-homogeneous boundary condition. If it is degenerate on the boundary, the part of the boundary whose boundary value should be imposed, is determined by the entropy condition from the convection term. If there is no convection term in the equation, we show that the stability of solutions can be proved without any boundary condition. If the equation is completely degenerate, we show that the stability of solutions can be established just based on the partial boundary condition.