Well posedness and unconditional non uniqueness for a 2D semilinear heat equation

Abstract

We investigate the initial value problem for a semilinear heat equation with exponential-growth nonlinearity in two space dimension. First, we prove the local existence and unconditional uniqueness of solutions in the Sobolev space $H^1(\R^2)$. The uniqueness part is non trivial although it follows Brezis-Cazenave's proof \cite{Br} in the case of monomial nonlinearity in dimension $d\geq3$. Next, %Following Caffarelli-Vasseur \cite{cv}, we show that in the defocusing case our solution is bounded, and therefore exists for all time. In the focusing case, we prove that any solution with negative energy blows up in finite time. Lastly, we show that the unconditional result is lost once we slightly enlarge the Sobolev space $H^1(\R^2)$. The proof consists in constructing a singular stationnary solution that will gain some regularity when it serves as initial data in the heat equation. The Orlicz space appears to be appropriate for this result since, in this case, the potential term is only an integrable function.