Hölder estimates for solutions of the Cauchy problem for the porous medium equation with external forces

Abstract

We study the interior Hölder regularity problem for weak solutions of the porous medium equation with external forces. Since the porous medium equation is the typical example of degenerate parabolic equations, Hölder regularity is a delicate matter and does not follow by classical methods. Caffrelli-Friedman, and Caffarelli-Vazquez-Wolansky showed Hölder regularity for the model equation without external forces. DiBenedetto and Friedman showed the Hölder continuity of weak solutions with some integrability conditions of the external forces but they did not obtain the quantitative estimates. The quantitative estimates are important for studying the perturbation problem of the porous medium equation. We obtain the scale invariant Hölder estimates for weak solutions of the porous medium equations with the external forces. As a particular case, we recover the well known Hölder estimates for the linear heat equation.

arXiv comment26 pages, 2 figures