We study the fully nonlinear elliptic equation $F(D^2u,Du,u,x) = f$ in a smooth bounded domain $Ω$, under the assumption the nonlinearity $F$ is uniformly elliptic and positively homogeneous. Recently, it has been shown that such operators have two principal "half" eigenvalues, and that the corresponding Dirichlet problem possesses solutions, if both of the principal eigenvalues are positive. In this paper, we prove the existence of solutions of the Dirichlet problem if both principal eigenvalues are negative, provided the "second" eigenvalue is positive, and generalize the anti-maximum principle of Clément and Peletier to homogeneous, fully nonlinear operators.
Using three different notions of generalized principal eigenvalue of linear second order elliptic operators in unbounded domains, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of the maximum principle, as well as for the existence of positive eigenfunctions satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions. Relations between these principal eigenvalues, their simplicity and several other properties are further discussed.
We study an asymptotic behaviour of the principal eigenvalue for an elliptic operator with large advection which is given by a gradient of a potential function. It is shown that the principal eigenvalue decays exponentially under the velocity potential well condition as the parameter tends to infinity.
We study existence of principal eigenvalues of fully nonlinear integro-differential elliptic equations with a drift term via the Krein-Rutman theorem which based on regularity up to boundary of viscosity solutions. We also show the simplicity of the eigenfunctions in viscosity sense by a nonlocal version of ABP estimate.
We study the generalized eigenvalue problem in $\mathbb{R}^N$ for a general convex nonlinear elliptic operator which is locally elliptic and positively $1$-homogeneous. Generalizing article of Berestycki and Rossi in [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 68 (2015), no. 6, 1014-1065] we consider three different notions of generalized eigenvalues and compare them. We also discuss the maximum principles and uniqueness of principal eigenfunctions.
In this article we present a new technique to obtain a lower bound for the principal Dirichlet eigenvalue of a fully nonlinear elliptic operator. We ilustrate the construction of an appropriate radial function required to obtain the bound in several examples. In particular we use our results to prove that $\lim_{p\to \infty}λ_{1,p}=λ_{1,\infty}=\left(\fracπ{2R}\right)^2$ where $λ_{1,p}$ and $λ_{1,\infty}$ are the principal eigenvalue for the homogeneous $p$-laplacian and the homogeneous infinity laplacian respectively.
In this paper we investigate homogenization results for the principal eigenvalue problem associated to $1$-homogeneous, uniformly elliptic, second-order operators. Under rather general assumptions, we prove that the principal eigenpair associated to an oscillatory operator converges to the eigenpair associated to the effective one. This includes the case of fully nonlinear operators. Rates of convergence for the eigenvalues are provided for linear and nonlinear problems, under extra regularity/convexity assumptions. Finally, a linear rate of convergence (in terms of the oscillation parameter) …
We characterize the validity of the Maximum Principle in bounded domains for fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic operators in terms of the sign of a suitably defined generalized principal eigenvalue. Here, maximum principle refers to the non-positivity of viscosity subsolutions of the Dirichlet problem. This characterization is derived in terms of a new notion of generalized principal eigenvalue, which is needed because of the possible degeneracy of the operator, admitted in full generality. We further discuss the relations between this notion and other natural generalizations of the classical…
We prove that the principal eigenvalue of any fully nonlinear homogeneous elliptic operator which fulfills a very simple convexity assumption satisfies a Brunn-Minkowski type inequality on the class of open bounded sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$ satisfying a uniform exterior sphere condition. In particular the result applies to the (possibly normalized) $p$-Laplacian, and to the minimal Pucci operator. The proof is inspired by the approach introduced by Colesanti for the principal frequency of the Laplacian within the class of convex domains, and relies on a generalization of the convex envelope metho…
We study the obstacle problem with an elliptic operator in nondivergence form with principal coefficients in VMO. We develop all of the basic theory of existence, uniqueness, optimal regularity, and nondegeneracy of the solutions. These results, in turn, allow us to begin the study of the regularity of the free boundary, and we show existence of blowup limits, a basic measure stability result, and a measure-theoretic version of the Caffarelli alternative proven in Caffarelli's 1977 paper "The regularity of free boundaries in higher dimensions."
For the $p$-harmonic function with strictly convex level sets, we find a test function which comes from the combination of the norm of gradient of the $p$-harmonic function and the smallest principal curvature of the level sets of $p$-harmonic function. We prove that this curvature function is convex with respect to the height of the $p$-harmonic function. This test function is an affine function of the height when the $p$-harmonic function is the $p$-Green function on the ball. For the minimal graph, we obtain a similar results.
In this article, we study, as the coefficient $s\to\infty$, the asymptotic behavior of the principal eigenvalue of $$-φ''(x)-2sm'(x)φ'(x)+c(x)φ(x)=λ_sφ(x),\ \ 0<x<1,$$ supplemented by different boundary conditions. This problem is relevant to nonlinear propagation phenomena in reaction-diffusion equations. The main point is that the advection (or drift) term $m$ allows natural degeneracy. For instance, $m$ could be constant on $[a,b]\subset[0,1]$. Depending on the behavior of $m$ near the neighbourhood of the end points $a,\,b$, the limiting value could be the principal eigenvalue of $$-φ''(x)…
In this note we establish the large time non-negativity of the heat kernel for a class of elliptic differential operators on closed, Riemannian manifolds, and apply this result to a problem from conformal differential geometry.
We investigate the existence of ground states for functionals with nonhomogenous principal part. Roughly speaking, we show that the Nehari manifold method requires no homogeinity on the principal part of a functional. This result is motivated by some elliptic problems involving nonhomogeneous operators. As an application, we prove the existence of a ground state and infinitely many solutions for three classes of boundary value problems.
In this paper, we give the strong unique continuation property for a general two dimensional anisotropic elliptic system with real coefficients in a Gevrey class under the assumption that the principal symbol of the system has simple characteristics. The strong unique continuation property is derived by obtaining some Carleman estimate. The derivation of the Carleman estimate is based on transforming the system to a larger second order elliptic system with diagonal principal part which has complex coefficients.
We study the generalized eigenvalue problem on the whole space for a class of integro-differential elliptic operators. The nonlocal operator is over a finite measure, but this has no particular structure. Some of our results even hold for singular kernels. The first part of the paper presents results concerning the existence of a principal eigenfunction. Then we present various necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the maximum principle to hold, and use these to characterize the simplicity of the principal eigenvalue.
We obtained estimates for first eigenvalues of the Dirichlet boundary value problem for elliptic operators in divergence form (i.e. for the principal frequency of non-homogeneous membranes) in bounded domains $Ω\subset \mathbb C$ satisfying quasihyperbolic boundary conditions. The suggested method is based on the quasiconformal composition operators on Sobolev spaces and their applications to constant estimates in the corresponding Sobolev-Poincaré inequalities. We also prove a variant of the Rayleigh-Faber-Khran inequality for a special case of these elliptic operators.
In this article, we are concerned with the following eigenvalue problem of a linear second order elliptic operator: \begin{equation} \nonumber -DΔϕ-2α\nabla m(x)\cdot \nablaϕ+V(x)ϕ=λϕ \ \hbox{ in }Ω, \end{equation} complemented by a general boundary condition including Dirichlet boundary condition and Robin boundary condition: $$ \frac{\partialϕ}{\partial n}+β(x)ϕ=0 \ \ \hbox{ on }\partialΩ, $$ where $β\in C(\partialΩ)$ allows to be positive, sign-changing or negative, and $n(x)$ is the unit exterior normal to $\partialΩ$ at $x$. The domain $Ω\subset\mathbb{R}^N$ is bounded and smooth, the con…
This paper investigates the link between the Maximum Principle and the sign of the (generalized) principal eigenvalue for elliptic operators in unbounded domains. Our approach covers the cases of Dirichlet, Neumann, and (indefinite) Robin boundary conditions and treat them in a unified way. For a certain class of elliptic operators (including the class of selfadjoint operators), we establish that the positivity of the principal eigenvalue is a necessary and sufficient condition for the validity of the Maximum Principle. If the principal eigenvalue is zero, no general answer holds; instead, und…
We establish the monotonicity of the principal eigenvalue $λ_1(A)$, as a function of the advection amplitude $A$, for the elliptic operator $L_{A}=-\mathrm{div}(a(x)\nabla)+A\mathbf{V}\cdot\nabla +c(x)$ with incompressible flow $\mathbf{V}$, subject to Dirichlet, Robin and Neumann boundary conditions. As a consequence, the limit of $λ_1(A)$ as $A\to \infty$ always exists and is finite for Robin boundary conditions. These results answer some open questions raised by [Berestycki, H., Hamel, F., Nadirashvili, N.: Elliptic eigenvalue problems with large drift and applications to nonlinear propagat…
This paper discusses the unique continuation principal of the solutions of the following perturbed fourth order elliptic differential operator $\mathcal{L}_{A,q}u=0$, where \[ \mathcal{L}_{A,q}(x,D)\ =\ \sum_{j=1}^nD^4_{x_j} + \sum_{j=1}^n A_jD_{x_j} + q, \qquad (A, q) \in W^{1,\infty}(Ω,\mathbb{C}^n) \times L^{\infty}(Ω,\mathbb{C}) \] whose principal term is not given by some integer power of the Laplacian operator. We derive some suitable Carleman estimates which is the main tool to prove the unique continuation principle. As a by-product, we also deduce some stability estimate and prove the…
A classical counterexample due to E. De Giorgi, shows that the weak maximum principle does not remain true for general linear elliptic differential systems. After that, there are some efforts to establish the weak maximum principle for special elliptic differential systems, but the existing works are addressing only the cases of weakly coupled systems, or almost-diagonal systems, or even some systems coupling in various lower order terms. In this paper, by contrast, we present maximum modulus estimates for weak solutions to two classes of coupled linear elliptic differential systems with diffe…
In this paper we develop a detailed study on maximum and comparison principles for a degenerate elliptic system. Explicit lower bounds for principal eigenvalues of this system in terms of the measure of $Ω$ are also proved.
We consider elliptic operators with measurable coefficients and Robin boundary conditions on a bounded domain $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ and show that the first eigenfunction $v$ satisfies $v(x) \ge δ> 0$ for all $x \in \overlineΩ$, even if the boundary $\partial Ω$ is only Lipschitz continuous. Under such weak regularity assumptions the Hopf-Ole\uınik boundary lemma is not available; instead we use a new approach based on an abstract positivity improving condition for semigroups that map $L_p(Ω)$ into $C(\overlineΩ)$. The same tool also yields corresponding results for Dirichlet or mixed boundar…
In this paper we show the existence of two principal eigenvalues associated to general non-convex fully nonlinear elliptic operators with Neumann boundary conditions in a bounded $C^2$ domain. We study these objects and we establish some of their basic properties. Finally, Lipschitz regularity, uniqueness and existence results for the solution of the Neumann problem are given.
We give existence and regularity results for solutions of some nonlinear elliptic problems. The equations we deal with are modeled on a problem which involves in its principal part an anisotropic operator, a Hardy-type potential, and a lower-order term depending on the gradient.
We prove doubling inequalities for solutions of elliptic systems with an iterated Laplacian as diagonal principal part and for solutions of the Lame' system of isotropic linearized elasticity. These inequalities depend on global properties of the solutions.
We consider general linear non-degenerate weakly-coupled cooperative elliptic systems and study certain monotonicity properties of the generalized principal eigenvalue in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with respect to the potential. It is shown that monotonicity on the right is equivalent to the recurrence property of the twisted operator which is, in turn, equivalent to the minimal growth property at infinity of the principal eigenfunctions. The strict monotonicity property of the principal eigenvalue is shown to be equivalent with the exponential stability of the twisted operators. An equivalence between th…
Using the quasiconformal mappings theory and Sobolev extension operators, we obtain estimates of principal frequencies of free non-homogeneous membranes. The suggested approach is based on connections between divergence form elliptic operators and quasiconformal mappings. Free non-homogeneous membranes we consider as circular membranes in the quasiconformal geometry associated with non-homogeneity of membranes. As a consequence we get a connection between principal frequencies of free membranes and the smallest-circle problem (initially suggested by J.~J. Sylvester in 1857).
We prove sharp lower bound estimates for the first nonzero eigenvalue of the non-linear elliptic diffusion operator $L_p$ on a smooth metric measure space, without boundary or with a convex boundary and Neumann boundary condition, satisfying $BE(κ,N)$ for $κ\neq 0$. Our results extends the work of Koerber[5] for case $κ=0$ and Naber-Valtorta[10] for the $p$-Laplacian.
In the present work we study elliptic operators on manifolds with singularities in the situation, when the manifold is endowed with an action of a discrete group $G$. As usual in elliptic theory, the Fredholm property of an operator is governed by the properties of its principal symbol. We show that the principal symbol in our situation is a pair, consisting of the symbol on the main stratum (interior symbol) and the symbol at the conical point (conormal symbol). Fredholm property of elliptic elements is obtained.
$W^{1, p}$ estimate for the solutions of elliptic equations whose coefficient matrix can have large jump along the boundary of subdomains is obtained. The principal coefficients are supposed to be in the John-Nirenberg space with small BMO seminorms. The domain and subdomains are Reifenberg flat domains and moreover, it has been shown that the estimates are uniform with respect to the distance between the subdomains.
We investigate the effects of advection on the principal eigenvalues of linear time-periodic parabolic operators with zero Neumann boundary conditions. Various asymptotic behaviors of the principal eigenvalues, when advection coefficient approaches infinity, are established in heterogeneous environments, where spatial or temporal degeneracy could occur in the advection term. Our findings partially extend the existing results in Chen-Lou [2008 Indiana Univ. Math. J.] and Peng-Zhou [2018 Indiana Univ. Math. J.] for elliptic operators and those in Peng-Zhao [2015 Calc. Var. Partial Diff.] for par…
The present paper establishes the first result on the absolute continuity of elliptic measure with respect to the Lebesgue measure for a divergence form elliptic operator with non-smooth coefficients that have a BMO anti-symmetric part. In particular, the coefficients are not necessarily bounded. We prove that the Dirichlet problem for elliptic equation ${\rm div}(A\nabla u)=0$ in the upper half-space $(x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^{n+1}_+$ is uniquely solvable when $n\ge2$ and the boundary data is in $L^p(\mathbb{R}^n,dx)$ for some $p\in (1,\infty)$. This result is equivalent to saying that the elliptic…
This paper studies the eigenvalue problem on $\mathbb{R}^d$ for a class of second order, elliptic operators of the form $\mathscr{L} = a^{ij}\partial_{x_i}\partial_{x_j} + b^{i}\partial_{x_i} + f$, associated with non-degenerate diffusions. We show that strict monotonicity of the principal eigenvalue of the operator with respect to the potential function $f$ fully characterizes the ergodic properties of the associated ground state diffusion, and the unicity of the ground state, and we present a comprehensive study of the eigenvalue problem from this point of view. This allows us to extend or s…
We introduce a new approach for the study of the Problem of Iterates using the theory on general ultradifferentiable structures developed in the last years. Our framework generalizes many of the previous settings including the Gevrey case and enables us, for the first time, to prove non-analytic Theorems of Iterates for non-elliptic differential operators. In particular, by generalizing a Theorem of Baouendi and Metivier we obtain the Theorem of Iterates for hypoelliptic analytic operators of principal type with respect to several non-analytic ultradifferentiable structures.
In this paper, we investigate the boundary behavior of solutions of divergence-form operators with an elliptic symmetric part and a $BMO$ anti-symmetric part. Our results will hold in non-tangentially accessible (NTA) domains; these general domains were introduced by Jerison and Kenig and include the class of Lipschitz domains. We establish the Hölder continuity of the solutions at the boundary, existence of elliptic measures $ω_L$ associated to such operators, and the well-posedness of the continuous Dirichlet problem as well as the $L^p(dω)$ Dirichlet problem in NTA domains. The equivalence …
We give sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness, in bounded uniformly convex domains $Ω$, of solutions of degenerate elliptic equations depending also on the nonlinear gradient term $H$, in term of the size of $Ω$, of the forcing term $f$ and of $H$. The results apply to a wide class of equations, having as principal part significant examples, e.g. linear degenerate operators, weighted partial trace operators and the homogeneous Monge-Ampère operator.
We show how the solutions to a $2\times2$ linear system involving Schr{ö}dinger operators blow up as the parameter $μ$ tends to some critical value which is the principal eigenvalue of the system; here the potential is continuous positive with superquadratic growth and the square matrix of the system is with constant coefficients and may have a double eigenvalue.
For a given second-order linear elliptic operator $L$ which admits a positive minimal Green function, and a given positive weight function $W$, we introduce a family of weighted Lebesgue spaces $L^p(ϕ_p)$ with their dual spaces, where $1\leq p\leq \infty$. We study some fundamental properties of the corresponding (weighted) Green operators on these spaces. In particular, we prove that these Green operators are bounded on $L^p(ϕ_p)$ for any $1\leq p\leq \infty$ with a uniform bound. We study the existence of a principal eigenfunction for these operators in these spaces, and the simplicity of th…
Qualitative Properties of the Principal Floquet Bundle and Their Applications
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Lanzhou University（兰州大学数学与统计学院）；School of Mathematical Science, CMA-Shanghai, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学数学科学学院，上海数学中心）
In this paper, we study the regularity of weak solutions and subsolutions of second-order elliptic equations having a gradient term with superquadratic growth. We show that, under appropriate integrability conditions on the data, all weak subsolutions in a bounded and regular open set $\Om$ are Hölder-continuous up to the boundary of $\Om$. Some local and global summability results are also presented. The main feature of this kind of problems is that the gradient term, not the principal part of the operator, is responsible for the regularity.
Thermoacoustic tomography is a term for the inverse problem of determining of one of initial conditions of a hyperbolic equation from boundary measurements. In the past publications both stability estimates and convergent numerical methods for this problem were obtained only under some restrictive conditions imposed on the principal part of the elliptic operator. In this paper logarithmic stability estimates are obatined for an arbitrary variable principal part of that operator. Convergence of the Quasi-Reversibility Method to the exact solution is also established for this case. Both complete…
In this article we consider direct and inverse problems for $α$-stable, elliptic nonlocal operators whose kernels are possibly only supported on cones and which satisfy the structural condition of \emph{directional antilocality} as introduced in \cite{I86}. We consider the Dirichlet problem for these operators on the "domain of dependence of the operator" and in several, adapted function spaces. This formulation allows one to avoid natural "gauges" which would else have to be considered in the study of the associated inverse problems. Exploiting the directional antilocality of these operators …
This paper is concerned with eigenvalue problems for non-symmetric elliptic operators with large drifts in bounded domains under Dirichlet boundary conditions. We consider the minimal principal eigenvalue and the related principal eigenfunction in the class of drifts having a given, but large, pointwise upper bound. We show that, in the asymptotic limit of large drifts, the maximal points of the optimal principal eigenfunctions converge to the set of points maximizing the distance to the boundary of the domain. We also show the uniform asymptotic profile of these principal eigenfunctions and t…
