Existence of weak solutions for nonlinear drift-diffusion equations with measure data

Abstract

We consider nonlinear drift-diffusion equations (both porous medium equations and fast diffusion equations) with measure data. We establish the existence of nonnegative weak solutions satisfying gradient estimates, provided that the drift term belongs to a sub-scaling class relevant to the $L^1$ space. When the drift is divergence-free, this requirement can be relaxed: the drift may belong to a class that is supercritical with respect to $L^1$-scaling class, and the admissible range of the diffusion exponent $m$ is enlarged as well. By handling both the measure data and the drift, we obtain a new type of energy estimate. We also discuss sharpness by constructing counterexamples showing that the general-drift range cannot be improved under the corresponding integrability scale without the divergence-free cancellation. As an application, we construct weak solutions for a specific type of nonlinear diffusion equation with measure data coupled to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations.