Research

Existence of nonnegative nontrivial periodic solutions to a doubly degenerate parabolic equation with variable exponent

Zhongqing Li* and Wenjie Gao

Author Affiliations

College of Mathematics, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, PR China

For all author emails, please log on.

Boundary Value Problems 2014, 2014:77  doi:10.1186/1687-2770-2014-77

 Received: 19 October 2013 Accepted: 20 March 2014 Published: 2 April 2014

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.

Abstract

The authors investigate a degenerate parabolic equation with delay and nonlocal term, which describes slow diffusive processes in physics or biology. The existence of a nonnegative nontrivial periodic solution is obtained through the use of the Leray-Schauder degree method.

MSC: 35D05, 35K55.

Keywords:
degenerate parabolic equation; periodic solution; variable exponent; topological degree; De Giorgi iteration

1 Introduction

In this paper, we are interested in the following evolutional -Laplacian equation:

(1.1)

Here, Ω is a bounded simply connected domain with smooth boundary Ω in , , , , and . We assume , , with , , and that and can be extended as T-periodic functions to . Furthermore, we assume that for a.e. .

Equation (1.1) is a doubly degenerate parabolic equation with delay and nonlocal term, which models diffusive periodic phenomena in physics and mathematical biology. In biology, it arises from population model, where denotes the density of population at time t located at , a is the natural growth rate of the population, the nonlocal term evaluates a weighted fraction of individual, and the delayed density u at time appearing in the nonlocal term represents the time needed to an individual to become adult. In physics, problem (1.1) is proposed based on some evolution phenomena in electrorheological fluids [1]. It describes the ability of a conductor to undergo significant changes when an electric field is imposed on. This model has been employed for some technological applications, such as medical rehabilitation equipment and shock wave absorber.

When is a constant and , , the model describes the slow diffusion process in physics, which has been extensively investigated; see [2-7]. For example, in [5], the authors studied the following doubly degenerate parabolic equation with logistic periodic sources:

They proved the existence of a nontrivial nonnegative periodic solution via monotonicity method. Using a Moser iterative method (see [8-11]), they also obtained some a priori bounds and asymptotic behaviors for the solutions.

Recently, the variable exponent Sobolev space and its applications have attracted considerable interest; see [1,12-14] and the references therein. When and , the doubly degenerate parabolic equation (1.1) is a more realistic model which describes the rather slow diffusion process. In our models, the principal term , in place of the usual term or , represents nonhomogeneous diffusion that depends on the position and thus gives a better description of nonhomogeneous character of the process.

There are many differences between Sobolev spaces with constant exponent and those with variable exponent; many powerful tools applicable in constant exponent spaces are not available for variable exponent spaces. For instance, the variable exponent spaces are no longer translation invariant and Young’s inequality holds if and only if p is constant (see monograph [12]). As we all know, the frequently used Hölder’s inequality, Poincaré’s inequality, etc., will be presented in new forms for variable exponent spaces.

The presence of the nonlocal term and -Laplacian term makes the sup-solution and sub-solution method (as in [5]) in vain. In our paper, we adopt the topological degree method (as in [8-10]) to show the existence of nontrivial periodic solutions to problem (1.1). However, the method employed in the variable exponent case [13] or in the constant exponent case [8-11] cannot be directly used to derive the uniform upper bound for solutions, which is a crucial step in applying the topological degree method. We apply a modified De Giorgi iteration to establish the crucial uniform bound. We believe that the modified De Giorgi iteration used in this paper can be employed to other types equations with nonstandard growth conditions.

We now discuss the main plan of the paper. In Section 2, we review some preliminaries concerning the variable exponent Sobolev spaces and introduce a family of regularized problems for problem (1.1). We regularize the degenerate part through replacing the term by

In Section 3, in order to apply the topological degree method, we combine these regularized problems with a relatively simpler equation and derive some a priori estimates. By virtue of the De Giorgi iteration technique, we deduce an a priori bound for solutions to the regularized problems in Proposition 3.2; and the uniform lower bound estimate is obtained in Proposition 3.5. In Section 4, we establish the existence of nonnegative nontrivial solution of (1.1) through the limit process as ϵ and η tend to zero. Finally, in the Appendix, we give a proof of the iteration lemma (Lemma 3.1) for the sake of readability.

2 Preliminaries and the regularized problems of (1.1)

First of all, for the reader’s convenience, we recall some preliminary results concerning the variable exponent Sobolev spaces. One may find these standard results in monographs [1,12].

Let p be a continuous function defined in , , for any .

1. space: We have

equipped with the following Luxemburg norm:

The space is a separable, uniformly convex Banach space.

2. space: We have

endowed with the norm . We denote by the closure of in . In fact, the norm and are equivalent norms in . and are separable and reflexive Banach spaces with the above norms.

3. Frequently used relationships in the estimate:

4. -Hölder’s inequality:

For any and , with , we have

5. Embedding relationships:

If and are in , and , for any , then there exists a positive constant such that

i.e. the embedding is continuous.

If and , for any , then the embedding is continuous and compact. Here

6. -Poincaré’s inequality:

There exists a positive constant such that , for any .

We next define the weak solutions to problem (1.1).

Definition 2.1u is said to be a weak periodic solution to (1.1) provided that with , and u satisfies

(2.1)

for all satisfying for and for .

As in [7], we introduce the following regularized problem:

(2.2)

where , and are given constants.

Definition 2.2 We say that is a weak periodic solution of (2.2), if with , , and solves

(2.3)

for all satisfying for and for .

Remark 2.3 For any , the set is dense in , thus in the sense of the definition of weak solution above, can be chosen as test function.

We investigate problem (2.2) extensively before studying the limit process as . Define a map as follows:

where is a weak periodic solution of the problem:

(2.4)

Given , let be defined by

Therefore, if a nonnegative function satisfies , then is a weak solution of (2.2).

Define

Then, according to [3] or the classical regularity results from [4], one obtains the following lemma.

Lemma 2.4Assume that, and. Thenis a continuous compact operator fromto. Furthermore, .

3 A priori estimates to the regularized problem

First of all, the following modified De Giorgi iteration lemma will be useful (we give a proof in the Appendix).

Lemma 3.1 (Iteration lemma)

Supposeis a nonnegative and nonincreasing function on, it satisfies

(3.1)

for any, and for some constants, , , . Then

where, and.

Next, we prove a crucial a priori bound for via a De Giorgi iteration technique as in [15].

Proposition 3.2Letand assume thatis a nonnegativeT-periodic continuous function such that

(3.2)

(3.3)

Then there exists a constant, such that, whereRis independent ofϵandη.

ProofStep 1. Multiplying (3.2) by , with any . Integrating over Ω and noticing that , we have

(3.4)

Since , we deal with the second term on the left-hand side of (3.4) as follows.

(3.5)

Combining (3.4) and (3.5), we have

(3.6)

We estimate the right-hand side of (3.6) by Hölder’s inequality, the embedding theorem and Young’s inequality with ϵ to deduce

(3.7)

Choosing and appropriately, we have from (3.6) and (3.7)

(3.8)

for any , where depends on q, , m, and Ω.

Integrating (3.6) over and using the T-periodicity of , we have

(3.9)

Similarly to (3.7), we obtain

(3.10)

where depends on q, , m, T and Ω. By Poincaré’s inequality, we have

(3.11)

Recall our assumption that , , and thus . Consequently, considering (3.11), we obtain

(3.12)

which implies that there exists a such that

(3.13)

From (3.8) and (3.13), we conclude

(3.14)

for any . In view of the T-periodicity of , (3.14) shows

We finally arrive at

(3.15)

for any , where C depends on q, , m, T and Ω.

Step 2. Let

where is the Lebesgue measure of the set . Multiplying (3.2) by on both sides, where represents the characteristic function of the interval , and integrating over , we have

Let . We assume that the absolutely continuous function attains its maximum at . Take , and θ small enough so that . (In fact, this is always possible because of the periodicity of ; for example, if , we take , then and .) Then we have and

(3.16)

Letting yields

(3.17)

After a direct computation, we obtain an estimate for the left-hand side of (3.17) as follows:

(3.18)

Substituting (3.18) into (3.17), we have

(3.19)

We now deal with (3.19). On one hand, by the embedding theorem

(3.20)

where S is the Sobolev embedding constant, and

On the other hand, from (3.15), where we may fix a special q, using Hölder’s inequality, we obtain

(3.21)

Let . Then (3.19), (3.20), and (3.21) imply

(3.22)

Utilizing Young’s inequality with ϵ, we obtain from (3.22)

Upon choosing ϵ appropriately, one obtains

(3.23)

For any , it is easy to see

(3.24)

The relationships (3.23) and (3.24) above imply that

(3.25)

Noticing that and , by the iteration Lemma 3.1, we obtain and thus , where

with

□

Theorem 3.3Assume, for a.e. . Then there exists a positive constantRsuch that

where.

Proof From Proposition 3.2, we take , it implies that there exists a positive constant independent of ϵ and η, such that , for any , . Hence the topological degree is well defined in . Thanks to the homotopy invariance property of the Leray-Schauder degree, we have

(3.26)

Using the fact that , one has

(3.27)

From (3.26) and (3.27), we get . □

Using the standard method, similar to that in [3] or [13], one can prove the following.

Proposition 3.4Assume that, . Ifsolves, for someand, thenfor any. Moreover, if, thenin.

In what follows, we prove a lower bound for the regularized problem.

Proposition 3.5Letbe the first eigenvalue of

and letbe the associated positive eigenfunction such that. Assume that, and. Ifsatisfiesfor some, then, where

is the embedding constant ofinto, andis the Lebesgue measure of the domain Ω.

Proof We argue by contradiction. If not, then for each and , there exists a such that , with . For clarity, we divide the proof into four steps.

Step 1. Note that, by Proposition 3.4, in . Taking and multiplying

(3.28)

by , integrating over and using the T-periodicity of , we obtain

(3.29)

Step 2. Using , we have

Since and , we have . Hence

(3.30)

Thanks to the -Hölder’s inequality in variable exponent space, we have

(3.31)

Noting that and using Hölder’s inequality, we have

(3.32)

Integrating (3.31) over and noting (3.32), we get

(3.33)

Step 3. Multiplying (3.28) by , integrating over , noticing the T-periodicity of and , we deduce

Substituting this inequality into (3.33), we have

(3.34)

Substituting (3.34) into (3.30) and noticing that , we get

(3.35)

Considering that , from (3.29) and (3.35), we have

(3.36)

Step 4. We claim

(3.37)

from which we will derive a contradiction. First, to show (3.37), let in (3.36). Using the fact that and noting and , we get

Now the definition of and (3.37) yield

(3.38)

which is clearly a contradiction to the assumption that . This completes the proof. □

Theorem 3.6Letbe as given in Proposition 3.5. Thenfor all.

Proof In view of Proposition 3.5, for any fixed , we have proved that for all , . So the Leray-Schauder topological degree is well defined for all . Thanks to the homotopy invariance of the topological degree, we have

(3.39)

Also, from Proposition 3.5, we infer that admits no nontrivial solution in . Moreover, is not a solution of . So . Together with (3.39), we have . □

4 Existence of nontrivial nonnegative solution to (1.1)

Theorem 4.1Assumefor a.e. and. Then problem (1.1) has a nontrivial nonnegative periodic solution.

Proof We consider the regularized problem (2.2). By Theorem 3.3 and Theorem 3.6, we conclude that there exist R and r, independent of ϵ and η, with , such that

for and . Using the solvability of the Leray-Schauder degree, we conclude that the regularized problem (2.2) admits a nontrivial nonnegative solution in .

We prove that with and that a solution to problem (1.1) is obtained as a limit of as . We proceed in several steps.

Step 1. In view of , choosing , we have

(4.1)

Multiplying (4.1) by , integrating over and noting the T-periodicity of and the boundedness of , we have

(4.2)

where M is a positive constant independent of ϵ and η. Moreover,

(4.3)

So and is uniformly bounded in the space . Thus, up to subsequence if necessary, we may assume that . In what follows, our main goal is to prove that u is a weak solution of problem (1.1).

Step 2. The following relation is obvious:

(4.4)

From (4.2) and (4.4), we have

(4.5)

Owing to the embedding results in the variable exponent space, one has

(4.6)

Integrating (4.6) over and using Hölder’s inequality, we have

(4.7)

From (4.5) and (4.7), there exists a positive constant C independent of ϵ and η, such that

(4.8)

In the following, we prove

(4.9)

First, denote

A straightforward computation shows that

(4.10)

By the -Hölder’s inequality, we have

(4.11)

Integrating (4.11) over , using the -Hölder’s inequality again, we get

(4.12)

Substituting (4.5), (4.8), and (4.12) into (4.10), we derive (4.9). Therefore, there exists a such that

(4.13)

weakly in as .

Step 3. Using a method analogous to [7], we get , where C is independent of ϵ and η. Since is uniformly bounded in , and , by compactness theorem (Corollary 4 in [16]), it follows that in . Thus, we have

(4.14)

for any satisfying for and for (and hence, by density, for any with and T-periodicity). The continuity of u follows from similar Hölder estimates in [17].

Step 4. It remains to verify for any ,

(4.15)

We consider matrix function . Then is a positive definite matrix. Choosing with , by mean value theorem, there exists a matrix Y such that

(4.16)

which gives

(4.17)

Multiplying the equation

by , integrating over and using T-periodicity of , one has

(4.18)

Thus, (4.17) and (4.18) imply

Letting , by (4.13), we have

(4.19)

Let in (4.14) and, by the T-periodicity of u, we get

(4.20)

Combining (4.19) with (4.20), we obtain

(4.21)

Taking , with and , we get

(4.22)

Letting in (4.22) yields

(4.23)

On the other hand, if we take , with and and let , we get

(4.24)

From (4.23) and (4.24) we have (4.15). This completes the proof of Theorem 4.1. □

Appendix

In this appendix, we prove Lemma 3.1 for the reader’s convenience.

Proof of Lemma 3.1 Define the following sequence:

where d is to be determined later. Then (3.1) implies the recursive relationship

(5.1)

By induction, one has

(5.2)

where is to be chosen. In fact, if (5.2) is right, then

We choose and . Consequently, these choices guarantee . From (5.2) and is nonnegative and nonincreasing, we have deduced the result. □

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed equally to the manuscript and approved the final version.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments on and suggestions regarding the original manuscript. This work was supported by National Science Foundation of China (11271154), by Key Lab of Symbolic Computation and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education and by the 985 program of Jilin University.

References

1. Růžička, M: Electrorheological Fluids: Modeling and Mathematical Theory, Springer, Berlin (2000)

2. DiBenedetto, E: Degenerate Parabolic Equations, Springer, New York (1993)

3. Fragnelli, G, Nistri, P, Papini, D: Non-trivial non-negative periodic solutions of a system of doubly degenerate parabolic equations with nonlocal terms. Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst.. 31, 35–64 (2011)

4. Ladyženskaja, OA, Solonnikov, VA, Ural’ceva, NN: Linear and Quasilinear Equations of Parabolic Type, Am. Math. Soc., Providence (1968) Translated from the Russian by S. Smith

5. Sun, J, Yin, J, Wang, Y: Asymptotic bounds of solutions for a periodic doubly degenerate parabolic equation. Nonlinear Anal.. 74, 2415–2424 (2011). Publisher Full Text

6. Tsutsumi, M: On solutions of some doubly nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations with absorption. J. Math. Anal. Appl.. 132, 187–212 (1988). Publisher Full Text

7. Wang, J, Gao, W: Existence of nontrivial nonnegative periodic solutions for a class of doubly degenerate parabolic equation with nonlocal terms. J. Math. Anal. Appl.. 331, 481–498 (2007). Publisher Full Text

8. Allegretto, W, Nistri, P: Existence and optimal control for periodic parabolic equations with nonlocal terms. IMA J. Math. Control Inf.. 16, 43–58 (1999). Publisher Full Text

9. Huang, R, Wang, Y, Ke, Y: Existence of non-trivial nonnegative periodic solutions for a class of degenerate parabolic equations with nonlocal terms. Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst., Ser. B. 5, 1005–1014 (2005)

10. Nakao, M: Periodic solutions of some nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations. J. Math. Anal. Appl.. 104, 554–567 (1984). Publisher Full Text

11. Pang, PYH, Wang, Y, Yin, J: Periodic solutions for a class of reaction-diffusion equations with p-Laplacian. Nonlinear Anal., Real World Appl.. 11, 323–331 (2010). Publisher Full Text

12. Diening, L, Harjulehto, P, Hästö, P, Růžička, M: Lebesgue and Sobolev Spaces with Variable Exponents, Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

13. Fragnelli, G: Positive periodic solutions for a system of anisotropic parabolic equations. J. Math. Anal. Appl.. 367, 204–228 (2010). Publisher Full Text

14. Guo, B, Gao, W: Study of weak solutions for parabolic equations with nonstandard growth conditions. J. Math. Anal. Appl.. 374, 374–384 (2011). Publisher Full Text

15. Wu, Z, Yin, J, Wang, C: Elliptic & Parabolic Equations, World Scientific, Hackensack (2006).

16. Simon, J: Compact sets in the space . Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4). 146, 65–96 (1987)

17. Porzio, MM, Vespri, V: Hölder estimates for local solutions of some doubly nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations. J. Differ. Equ.. 103, 146–178 (1993). Publisher Full Text