A note on the uniqueness of entropy solutions of nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations

Following the lead of [Carrillo, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 147 (1999) 269-3611, recently several authors have used Kruzkov's device of "doubling the variables" to prove uniqueness results for entropy solutions of nonlinear degenerate parabolic equations. In all these results, the second order differential operator is not allowed to depend explicitly on the spatial variable, which certainly restricts the range of applications of entropy solution theory. The purpose of this paper is to extend a version of Carrillo's uniqueness result to a class of degenerate parabolic equations with spatially dependent second order differential operator. The class is large enough to encompass several interesting nonlinear partial differential equations coming from the theory of porous media flow and the phenomenological theory of sedimentation-consolidation processes. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.