Stability of nonlinear diffusion

The nonlinear diffusion equation in bounded geometry with time-independent boundary conditions has a uniquely determined stationary solution. We show that this solution is dynamically stable in the sense of Liapunov. Any initial distribution tends to the stationary one as time goes on. It is shown that the application of the Glansdorff-Prigogine stability criterion requires a more elaborate analysis. We develop a variational procedure which has application in a wide range of nonlinear transport problems.