On the blowing-up behavior of solutions for a parabolic boundary value problem

Abstract

This paper discusses the existence and the blowing-up behaviour of the solution for an initial boundary value problem which arises from the ignition of mixtures of gases. It is shown under the Dirichlet or the third type of boundary condition that for certain a class of initial functions local solutions exist and grow unbounded in finite time, while for another class of initial functions there exist global solutions which converge to a steady state solution of the problem. These results lead to an interesting bifurcation phenomenon on the existence, stability and blowing-up property of the solution in terms of either the strength of the nonlinear function or the size of the diffusion region. Estimates for the stability and instability regions as well as bounds for the finite escape time are explicitly given.