A Sixth-Order Nonlinear Parabolic Equation for Quantum Systems

The global-in-time existence of weak nonnegative solutions to a sixth-order nonlinear parabolic equation in one space dimension with periodic boundary conditions is proved. The equation arises from an approximation of the quantum drift-diffusion model for semiconductors and describes the evolution of the electron density in the semiconductor crystal. The existence result is based on two techniques. First, the equation is reformulated in terms of exponential and power variables, which allows for the proof of nonnegativity of solutions. The existence of solutions to an approximate equation is shown by fixed point arguments. Second, a priori bounds uniformly in the approximation parameters are derived from the algorithmic entropy construction method which translates systematic integration by parts into polynomial decision problems. The a priori estimates are employed to show the exponential time decay of the solution to the constant steady state in the $L^1$ norm with an explicit decay rate. Furthermore, som...