(i) Discuss briefly the concept of well-posedness of a Cauchy problem for a partial differential equation.
Solve the Cauchy problem
∂2u+x1∂1u=au2,u(x1,0)=ϕ(x1),
where a∈R,ϕ∈C1(R) and ∂i denotes the partial derivative with respect to xi for i=1,2.
For the case a=0 show that the solution satisfies maxx1∈R∣u(x1,x2)∣=∥ϕ∥C0, where the Cr norm on functions ϕ=ϕ(x1) of one variable is defined by
∥ϕ∥Cr=i=0∑rx∈Rmax∣∣∣∂1iϕ(x1)∣∣∣
Deduce that the Cauchy problem is then well-posed in the uniform metric (i.e. the metric determined by the C0 norm).
(ii) State the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem and deduce that the following Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation,
∂12u+∂22u=0,u(x1,0)=0,∂2u(x1,0)=ϕ(x1)
has a unique analytic solution in some neighbourhood of x2=0 for any analytic function ϕ=ϕ(x1). Write down the solution for the case ϕ(x1)=sin(nx1), and hence give a sequence of initial data {ϕn(x1)}n=1∞ with the property that
∥ϕn∥Cr→0, as n→∞, for each r∈N,
whereas un, the corresponding solution of (∗), satisfies
x1∈Rmax∣un(x1,x2)∣→+∞, as n→∞
for any x2=0.