We prove the parabolic strong maximum principle and the Harnack inequality for classical solutions to degenerate second order partial differential equations of the formLu:=∑i,j=1m0∂xi(aij∂xju)+∑j=1m0bj∂xju+cu+∑i,j=1Nbijxj∂xiu−∂tu=f, where 1≤m0≤N, A0=(aij)i,j=1,…,m0 is a bounded, symmetric and uniformly positive matrix and the matrix B:=(bij)i,j=1,…,N has real constant entries. Moreover, we assume low regularity (i.e. Hölder continuity) on the coefficients aij, bj and c, for i,j=1,…,m0. We point out the proofs of our main results only rely on the classical theory developed for harmonic functions.
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