Regularity for solutions to inhomogeneous degenerate parabolic $p$-Laplace equations

Abstract

For weak solutions to quasilinear degenerate parabolic equations of $p$-Laplace type, a central obstacle in applying the method of intrinsic scaling to prove their Hölder regularity is the derivation of forward-in-time propagation estimate for the spatial measure of level sets. In this paper, we revisit and overcome this difficulty for an inhomogeneous degenerate parabolic $p$-Laplace equation with bounded nonnegative time-independent forcing term and initial data. Our new proof is built upon the temporal Lipschitz estimate that we establish on any time interval separated from the initial time by a positive amount. The strong regularity gain furnished by this estimate allows us to derive the forward propagation of level-set measures directly, thereby bypassing the energy inequality that served as the starting point of the previous approach. Furthermore, we establish space-time $W^{1,\infty}_{x,t}$ estimates away from the initial time and construct counterexamples to demonstrate the sharpness of the positive waiting-time condition under merely bounded initial data.