Unidirectional evolution equations of diffusion type

This paper is concerned with the uniqueness, existence, partial smoothing effect, comparison principle and long-time behavior of solutions to the initial-boundary value problem for a unidirectional diffusion equation. The unidirectional evolution often appears in Damage Mechanics due to the strong irreversibility of crack propagation or damage evolution. The existence of solutions is proved in an $L^2$-framework by employing a backward Euler scheme and by introducing a new method of a priori estimates based on a reduction of discretized equations to variational inequalities of obstacle type and by developing a regularity theory for such obstacle problems. The novel discretization argument will be also applied to prove the comparison principle as well as to investigate the long-time behavior of solutions.