Asymptotic behaviour of a porous medium equation with fractional diffusion

Abstract

We consider a porous medium equation with nonlocal diffusion effects given by an inverse fractional Laplacian operator. In a previous paper we have found mass-preserving, nonnegative weak solutions of the equation satisfying energy estimates. The equation is posed in the whole space R^n. Here we establish the large-time behaviour. We first find selfsimilar nonnegative solutions by solving an elliptic obstacle problem with fractional Laplacian for the pair pressure-density, which we call obstacle Barenblatt solutions. The theory for elliptic fractional problems with obstacles has been recently established. We then use entropy methods to show that the asymptotic behavior of general finite-mass solutions is described after renormalization by these special solutions.