Sharp Lifespan Dichotomies and Threshold Phenomena for Semilinear Heat Equations Driven by the Logarithmic Laplacian

Abstract

We investigate nonnegative mild solutions of ${\partial }_{t}u+(-\Delta {)}^{\ln }u=f(u)$ in $(0,T)\times {\mathbb{R}}^N$, with initial datum $u(0,\cdot )=\mu u_0$, $\mu >0$. Unlike the classical and fractional heat semigroups, the positive logarithmic heat kernel exists only for $0<t<N/2$, and the corresponding linear evolution may become singular at its terminal time, with lifespan and growth depending on the spatial decay of $u_0$. The behavior of $f$ near zero determines local solvability: if ${\int }_{0^{+}}d\sigma /f(\sigma )<\infty$, then no finite nonnegative solution exists on any positive time interval. Under suitable assumptions on $u_0$ and $f$, we establish well-posedness for the nonintegrable logarithmic heat kernel. If $f$ has at most global linear growth, the nonlinear solution attains the full linear lifespan, while the Osgood condition at infinity implies that the maximal existence time tends to zero as $\mu \to \infty$. We further distinguish slow-decay, fast-decay, and critical-tail initial data. In the noncritical regimes, a weighted Osgood tail condition yields blow-up strictly before the linear terminal time; if it fails, an amplitude threshold occurs under additional assumptions on $f$. In the critical regime, the dividing power is $3/2$: a square-root weighted Osgood condition yields premature blow-up, while its failure again leads to an amplitude threshold. Finally, we obtain terminal-time blow-up estimates and sharp rates for power nonlinearities.