The thermistor problem with conductivity vanishing for large temperature

Abstract

We consider the system (∂/∂t)u = ∆u + σ(u)|∇φ|2, div (σ(u)∇φ) = 0 in a bounded region of ℝN coupled with initial and boundary conditions, where σ(s) ∈ C(ℝ) is nonnegative and σ(u) = 0 if and only if u ≧ a for some a > 0. Owing to the degeneracy involved, solutions of the problem display new phenomena that cannot be incorporated into the classical weak formulation. The notion of a capacity solution introduced in [14,15] is employed to study the problem. It turns out that this notion of a solution is just general enough to encompass the new phenomena involved.