Uniform and optimal estimates for solutions to singularly perturbed parabolic equations

The Cauchy problem for singularly perturbed parabolic equations is considered, and weighted L^2-estimates as well as certain decay properties of bounded classical solutions to it are established. These do not depend on the value of the small perturbation parameter, and allow to prove global in time existence of strong solutions to certain boundary-value problem for ultraparabolic equations with unbounded coefficients. Optimal decay estimates are proved for such solutions. All results concerning ultraparabolic equations apply, in particular, to the Kolmogorov equation for diffusion with inertia, to the (linear) Fokker-Planck equation, to the linearized Boltzmann equation, and to some nonlinear integro-differential ultraparabolic equations of the Fokker-Planck type, arising from biophysics. Optimal decay estimates are derived for global in time strong solutions to such equations.