Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-1-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/3/a/i/solution

Let on the unit disk over . Smoothness is understood to include continuity on the closed cylinder. If exceeded its nonnegative parabolic boundary maximum , it would attain a positive global maximum at some spatial interior point at time . There,
At the last inequality uses the derivative from the past; at an interior time it is equality. These signs imply , contradicting the given differential inequality. Thus
If , equality at any point of gives the same contradiction with , so throughout . If , equality is possible: is an example. More precisely, write the inequality as with . The strong parabolic maximum principle shows that an interior zero at time forces on .
That conclusion need not extend into the future for a subsolution. For , take a spatially constant function which is zero for and equals for . It is smooth, nonincreasing and nonpositive, so , but it becomes negative after .

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