We consider the fundamental solution to the wave equation on a manifold with corners of arbitrary codimension. If the initial pole of the solution is appropriately situated, we show that the singularities which are diffracted by the corners (i.e., loosely speaking, are not propagated along limits of transversely reflected rays) are smoother than the main singularities of the solution. More generally, we show that subject to a hypothesis of nonfocusing, diffracted wavefronts of any solution to the wave equation are smoother than the incident singularities. These results extend our previous work on edge manifolds to a situation where the fibers of the boundary fibration, obtained here by blowup of the corner in question, are themselves manifolds with corners.
We are concerned with rigorous mathematical analysis of shock diffraction by two-dimensional convex cornered wedges in compressible fluid flow governed by the nonlinear wave system. This shock diffraction problem can be formulated as a boundary value problem for second-order nonlinear partial differential equations of mixed elliptic-hyperbolic type in an unbounded domain. It can be further reformulated as a free boundary problem for nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations of second order. We establish a first global theory of existence and regularity for this shock diffraction problem. In part…
In this paper we describe the propagation of smooth (C^\infty) and Sobolev singularities for the wave equation on smooth manifolds with corners M equipped with a Riemannian metric g. That is, for X=MxR, P=D_t^2-Δ_M, and u locally in H^1 solving Pu=0 with homogeneous Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, we show that the wave front set of u is a union of maximally extended generalized broken bicharacteristics. This result is a smooth counterpart of Lebeau's results for the propagation of analytic singularities on real analytic manifolds with appropriately stratified boundary. Our methods re…
Shock waves are steep wave fronts that are fundamental in nature, especially in high-speed fluid flows. When a shock hits an obstacle, or a flying body meets a shock, shock reflection/diffraction phenomena occur. In this paper, we show how several longstanding shock reflection/diffraction problems can be formulated as free boundary problems, discuss some recent progress in developing mathematical ideas, approaches, and techniques for solving these problems, and present some further open problems in this direction. In particular, these shock problems include von Neumann's problem for shock refl…
In this paper we prove the propagation of singularities for the wave equation on differential forms with natural (i.e. relative or absolute) boundary conditions on Lorentzian manifolds with corners, which in particular includes a formulation of Maxwell's equations. These results are analogous to those obtained by the author for the scalar wave equation and for the wave equation on systems with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions earlier. The main novelty is thus the presence of natural boundary conditions, which effectively make the problem non-scalar, even `to leading order', at corners …
In this paper we show that for metrics with conormal singularities that correspond to class C^{1,α} with α>0, the reflected wave is more regular than the incident wave in a Sobolev sense. This is helpful in the analysis of the multiple scattering series since higher order terms can be effectively `peeled off'.
In this contribution we are interested in the quantitative homogenization properties of linear elliptic equations with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary data in polygonal domains with corners. To begin our study of this situation, we consider the setting of an angular sector in 2 dimensions : Unlike in the whole-space, on such a sector there exist non-smooth harmonic functions (these depend on the angle of the sector). Here, we construct extended homogenization correctors corresponding to these harmonic functions and prove growth estimates for these which are quasi-optimal, namely optimal up to a…
We establish propagation of singularities for the semiclassical Schrödinger equation, where the potential is conormal to a hypersurface. We show that semiclassical wavefront set propagates along generalized broken bicharacteristics, hence reflection of singularities may occur along trajectories reaching the hypersurface transversely. The reflected wavefront set is weaker, however, by a power of $h$ that depends on the regularity of the potential. We also show that for sufficiently regular potentials, wavefront set may not stick to the hypersurface, but rather detaches from it at points of tang…
We investigate the singularities of the trace of the half-wave group, $\mathrm{Tr} \, e^{-it\sqrtΔ}$, on Euclidean surfaces with conical singularities $(X,g)$. We compute the leading-order singularity associated to periodic orbits with successive degenerate diffractions. This result extends the previous work of the third author \cite{Hil} and the two-dimensional case of the work of the first author and Wunsch \cite{ForWun} as well as the seminal result of Duistermaat and Guillemin \cite{DuiGui} in the smooth setting. As an intermediate step, we identify the wave propagators on $X$ as singular …
We are concerned with the suitability of the main models of compressible fluid dynamics for the Lighthill problem for shock diffraction by a convex corned wedge, by studying the regularity of solutions of the problem, which can be formulated as a free boundary problem. In this paper, we prove that there is no regular solution that is subsonic up to the wedge corner for potential flow. This indicates that, if the solution is subsonic at the wedge corner, at least a characteristic discontinuity (vortex sheet or entropy wave) is expected to be generated, which is consistent with the experimental …
In this paper, we compute the diffractive wave propagator of the Aharonov-Bohm effect on $\mathbf{R}^2$ with a single solenoid using a technique of moving solenoid location. In addition, we compute the corresponding diffraction coefficient which is the principal symbol of the diffractive propagator. This paper gives the first proof of propagation of singularities of the Aharonov-Bohm Hamiltonian.
We give a brief survey on some new developments on elliptic operators on manifolds with polyhedral singularities. The material essentially corresponds to a talk given by the author during the Conference "Elliptic and Hyperbolic Equations on Singular Spaces", October 27 - 31, 2008, at the MSRI, University of Berkeley.
We establish a quantisation of corner-degenerate symbols, here called Mellin-edge quantisation, on a manifold $M$ with second order singularities. The typical ingredients come from the "most singular" stratum of $M$ which is a second order edge where the infinite transversal cone has a base $B$ that is itself a manifold with smooth edge. The resulting operator-valued amplitude functions on the second order edge are formulated purely in terms of Mellin symbols taking values in the edge algebra over $B.$ In this respect our result is formally analogous to a quantisation rule of a joint paper wit…
In this paper, we investigate the geometric propagation and diffraction of singularities of solutions to the wave equation on manifolds with edge singularities.
We investigate the diffraction of singularities of solutions to the linear elastic equation on manifolds with edge singularities. Such manifolds are modeled on the product of a smooth manifold and a cone over a compact fiber. For the fundamental solution, the initial pole generates a pressure wave (p-wave), and a secondary, slower shear wave (s wave). If the initial pole is appropriately situated near the edge, we show that when a p-wave strikes the edge, the diffracted p-waves and s-waves (i.e. loosely speaking, do not correspond to limits of p-rays which just miss the edge) are weaker in a S…
We consider the elastic stress near a hole with corners in an infinite plate under biaxial stress. The elasticity problem is formulated using complex Goursat functions, resulting in a set of singular integro-differential equations on the boundary. The resulting boundary integral equations are solved numerically using a Chebyshev collocation method which is augmented by a fractional power term, derived by asymptotic analysis of the corner region, to resolve stress singularities at corners of the hole. We apply our numerical method to the test case of the hole formed by two partially-overlapping…
We study the spectrum and heat kernel of the Hodge Laplacian with coefficients in a flat bundle on a closed manifold degenerating to a manifold with wedge singularities. Provided the Hodge Laplacians in the fibers of the wedge have an appropriate spectral gap, we give uniform constructions of the resolvent and heat kernel on suitable manifolds with corners. When the wedge manifold and the base of the wedge are odd dimensional, this is used to obtain a Cheeger-Müller theorem relating analytic torsion with the Reidemeister torsion of the natural compactification by a manifold with boundary.
We study the inverse backscattering problem for the Schrödinger equation in two dimensions. We prove that, for a non-smooth potential in 2D the main singularities up to 1/2 of the derivative of the potential are contained in the Born approximation (Diffraction Tomography approximation) constructed from the backscattering data. We measure singularities in the scale of Hilbertian Sobolev spaces.
One way to geometrically encode the singularities of a stratified pseudomanifold is to endow its interior with an iterated fibred cusp metric. For such a metric, we develop and study a pseudodifferential calculus generalizing the Φ-calculus of Mazzeo and Melrose. Our starting point is the observation, going back to Melrose, that a stratified pseudomanifold can be `resolved' into a manifold with fibred corners. This allows us to define pseudodifferential operators as conormal distributions on a suitably blown-up double space. Various symbol maps are introduced, leading to the notion of full ell…
We investigate inverse diffraction problems for penetrable gratings in a piecewise constant medium. In the TE polarization case, it is proved that a binary grating profile together with the refractive index beneath it can be uniquely determined by the near-field observation data incited by a single plane wave and measured on a line segment above the grating. Our approach relies on the expansion of solutions to the Helmholtz equation and the corner singularity analysis of solutions to the inhomogeneous Laplace equation with a piecewise continuous source term in a sector. This paper also contrib…
We provide a detailed description of the structure of the transition probabilities and of the hitting distributions of boundary components of a manifold with corners for a degenerate strong Markov process arising in population genetics. The Markov processes that we study are a generalization of the classical Wright-Fisher process. The main ingredients in our proofs are based on the analysis of the regularity properties of solutions to a forward Kolmogorov equation defined on a compact manifold with corners, which is degenerate in the sense that it is not strictly elliptic and the coefficients …
Motivated by the study of the corner singularities in the so-called cavity flow, we establish in this article, the existence and uniqueness of solutions in $L^2(Ω)^2$ for the Stokes problem in a domain $Ω,$ when $Ω$ is a smooth domain or a convex polygon. We establish also a trace theorem and show that the trace of $u$ can be arbitrary in $L^2(\partialΩ)^2.$ The results are also extended to the linear evolution Stokes problem.
