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Communications on Pure and Applied Analysis (CPAA)
 

Monotone solutions to a class of elliptic and diffusion equations

Pages: 237 - 246, Volume 6, Issue 1, March 2007

doi:10.3934/cpaa.2007.6.237       Abstract        Full Text (135.9K)       Related Articles

Li Ma - Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (email)
Chong Li - Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (email)
Lin Zhao - Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (email)

Abstract: In this paper, we study the existence and properties of monotone solutions to the following elliptic equation in $\mathbf R^n$

$-\Delta u= F'(u),$ in $\mathbf R^n,$

$\partial_{x_n}u>0,$

and the diffusion equation

$u_t-\Delta u= F'(u),$ in $\mathbf R^n\times$ {$t>0$},

$\partial_{x_n}u>0, u|_{t=0}=u_0,$

where $\Delta$ is the standard Laplacian operator in $\mathbf R^n$, and $u_0$ is a given smooth function in $\mathbf R^n$ with some monotonicity condition. We show that under a natural condition on the nonlinear term $F'$, there exists a global solution to the diffusion problem above, and as time goes to infinity, the solution converges in $C_{l o c}^2(\mathbf R^n)$ to a solution to the corresponding elliptic problem. In particular, we show that for any two solutions $u_1(x')<$ $u_2(x')$ to the elliptic equation in $\mathbf R^{n-1}$:

$-\Delta u=F'(u),$ in $\mathbf R^{n-1}, $

either for every $c\in (u_1(0),u_2(0))$, there exists an $(n-1)$ dimensional solution $u_c$ with $u_c(0)=c$, or there exists an $x_n$-monotone solution $u(x',x_n)$ to the elliptic equation in $\mathbf R^n$:

$-\Delta u=F'(u), $ in $\mathbf R^n,$

$\partial_{x_n}u>0,$ in $\mathbf R^n$

such that

$\lim_{x_n\to-\infty}u(x',x_n)=v_1(x')\leq u_1(x')$

and

$\lim_{x_n\to+\infty}u(x',x_n)=v_2(x')\leq u_2(x').$

A typical example is when $F'(u)=u-|u|^{p-1}u$ with $p>1$. Some of our results are similar to results for minimizers obtained by Jerison and Monneau [13] by variational arguments. The novelty of our paper is that we only assume the condition for $F$ used by Keller and Osserman for boundary blow up solutions.

Keywords:  Monotone solution, parabolic equation, De Giorgi conjecture.
Mathematics Subject Classification:  35Jxx.

Received: March 2006;      Revised: August 2006;      Published: December 2006.