Existence and Regularizing Effects of a Nonlinear Diffusion Model for Plasma Instabilities

We study existence and regularity of weak solutions to a nonlinear parabolic Dirichlet problem $\partial_{t}u - \rho_{\lambda}(x)u\Delta u = \rho_{\lambda}(x)g_{0}(x)u$ on the half line $(0,\infty)$. We find weak solutions from $L^p\ (p < \infty)$ initial data, and by means of a Benilan-Crandall inequality, show solutions are jointly Holder continuous, and locally, spatially Lipschitz on the parabolic interior. We identify special solutions which saturate these bounds. The Benilan-Crandall inequality, derived from time-scaling arguments, is of independent interest for exposing a regularizing effect of the parabolic u$\Delta$u operator. Recently considered in [11], this problem originates in the theory of nonlinear instability damping via wave-particle interactions in plasma physics (see [8, 22]).