This paper deals with nonnegative solutions of the one-dimensional degenerate parabolic equations with zero homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. To obtain an existence result, we prove a sharp estimate for |ux|. Besides, we investigate the qualitative behaviours of nonnegative solutions such as the quenching phenomenon, and the finite speed of propagation. Our results of the Dirichlet problem are also extended to the associated Cauchy problem on the whole domain ℝ. In addition, we also consider the instantaneous shrinking of compact support of nonnegative solutions.

Propagation at a finite speed is established for non-negative weak solutions to a thin-film approximation of the two-phase Muskat problem. The expansion rate of the support matches the scale invariance of the system. Moreover, we determine sufficient conditions on the initial data for the occurrence of waiting time phenomena.

We study the following coupled nonlinear Schr¨odinger system in ℝ3:

where μ1 > 0, μ2 > 0 and β ∈ ℝ is a coupling constant. Irrespective of whether the system is repulsive or attractive, we prove that it has nodal semi-classical segregated or synchronized bound states with clustered spikes for sufficiently small ε under some additional conditions on P(x), Q(x) and β. Moreover, the number of this type of solutions will go to infinity as ε → 0+.

This paper concerns the quenching phenomena of a reaction–diffusion equation $u_{t}=u_{xx}+1/(1-u)$ in a one dimensional varying domain $[g(t),h(t)]$, where $g(t)$ and $h(t)$ are two free boundaries evolving by a Stefan condition. We prove that all solutions will quench regardless of the choice of initial data, and we also show that the quenching set is a compact subset of the initial occupying domain and that the two free boundaries remain bounded.

The integration-by-parts methods introduced in this paper improve upon the $L^p$ estimates on transport densities given in the recent paper by L. De Pascale and A. Pratelli (Calc. Var. Partial Differential Equations 14 (2002) 249–274).