Positive solutions of quasilinear parabolic systems with nonlinear boundary conditions

The aim of this paper is to investigate the existence, uniqueness, and asymptotic behavior of solutions for a coupled system of quasilinear parabolic equations under nonlinear boundary conditions, including a system of quasilinear parabolic and ordinary differential equations. Also investigated is the existence of positive maximal and minimal solutions of the corresponding quasilinear elliptic system as well as the uniqueness of a positive steady-state solution. The elliptic operators in both systems are allowed to be degenerate in the sense that the density-dependent diffusion coefficients Di(ui ) may have the property Di (0) = 0 for some or all i. Our approach to the problem is by the method of upper and lower solutions and its associated monotone iterations. It is shown that the time-dependent solution converges to the maximal solution for one class of initial functions and it converges to the minimal solution for another class of initial functions; and if the maximal and minimal solutions coincide then the steady-state solution is unique and the time-dependent solution converges to the unique solution. Applications of these results are given to three model problems, including a porous medium type of problem, a heat-transfer problem, and a twocomponent competition model in ecology. These applications illustrate some very interesting distinctive behavior of the time-dependent solutions between density-independent and density-dependent diffusions. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.