Mildly degenerate Kirchhoff equations with weak dissipation: Global existence and time decay

We consider the hyperbolic–parabolic singular perturbation problem for a degenerate quasilinear Kirchhoff equation with weak dissipation. This means that the coefficient of the dissipative term tends to zero when t→+∞.We prove that the hyperbolic problem has a unique global solution for suitable values of the parameters. We also prove that the solution decays to zero, as t→+∞, with the same rate of the solution of the limit problem of parabolic type.