Rigorous Mathematical Investigation of a Nonlocal and Nonlinear Second-Order Anisotropic Reaction-Diffusion Model: Applications on Image Segmentation

In this paper we are addressing two main topics, as follows. First, a rigorous qualitative study is elaborated for a second-order parabolic problem, equipped with nonlinear anisotropic diffusion and cubic nonlinear reaction, as well as non-homogeneous Cauchy-Neumann boundary conditions. Under certain assumptions on the input data: f(t,x), w(t,x) and v(0)(x), we prove the well-posedness (the existence, a priori estimates, regularity, uniqueness) of a solution in the Sobolev space W-p(1,2)(Q), facilitating for the present model to be a more complete description of certain classes of physical phenomena. The second topic refers to the construction of two numerical schemes in order to approximate the solution of a particular mathematical model (local and nonlocal case). To illustrate the effectiveness of the new mathematical model, we present some numerical experiments by applying the model to image segmentation tasks.