Solution of a partial differential equation

A solution of a partial differential equation is a function satisfying the equation in a specified sense and obeying its initial or boundary data.

A classical solution has enough ordinary derivatives for the differential equation and its data to hold pointwise.

A weak solution satisfies an integrated identity in which derivatives are transferred to test functions. It can therefore exist with fewer classical derivatives.

A weak formulation multiplies a differential equation by a test function, integrates, and uses integration by parts to move derivatives away from the unknown function. Natural boundary conditions appear in the resulting boundary terms.

The Galerkin method seeks an approximate solution in a finite-dimensional subspace and requires the equation's residual to be orthogonal to that subspace. Uniform energy estimates and compactness can then produce a weak solution as the subspaces become dense.

If $X_0$ embeds compactly into $X$ and $X$ embeds continuously into $X_1$, then boundedness in $L^p(0,T;X_0)$ together with a suitable time-derivative bound in $L^q(0,T;X_1)$ makes a family relatively compact in $L^p(0,T;X)$. A standard case is

If $u\in L^{\infty }(0,T;H)$ and $u_t\in L^q(0,T;V^{\prime })$ for a dense continuous embedding $V\hookrightarrow H$ and some $q>1$, then $u$ has a representative in $C([0,T];H_{\mathrm{weak}})$. Indeed, its pairing with each element of a dense subset of $V$ is absolutely continuous, and the uniform $H$ bound extends continuity to every element of $H$.

If $u:[0,T]\to H$ is weakly continuous and an energy equality makes $t\mapsto \Vert u(t){\Vert }_H$ continuous, then $u$ is strongly continuous. This follows from the Radon-Riesz theorem applied whenever $t_n\to t$.