Properties of the free boundaries for the obstacle problem of the porous medium equations.

In this paper, we study the existence and interior W 2 , p -regularity of the solution, and the regularity of the free boundary ∂ ⁡ { u > ϕ } to the obstacle problem of the porous medium equation, u t = Δ ⁢ u m ( m > 1 ) with the obstacle function ϕ. The penalization method is applied to have the existence and interior regularity. To deal with the interaction between two free boundaries ∂ ⁡ { u > ϕ } and ∂ ⁡ { u > 0 } , we consider two cases on the initial data which make the free boundary ∂ ⁡ { u > ϕ } separate from the free boundary ∂ ⁡ { u > 0 } . Then the problem is converted into the obstacle problem for a fully nonlinear operator. Hence, the C 1 -regularity of the free boundary ∂ ⁡ { u > ϕ } is obtained by the regularity theory of a class of obstacle problems for the general fully nonlinear operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]