Motivated by a question of Rubel, we consider the problem of characterizing which noncompact hypersurfaces in $\RR^n$ can be regular level sets of a harmonic function modulo a $C^\infty$ diffeomorphism, as well as certain generalizations to other PDEs. We prove a versatile sufficient condition that shows, in particular, that any (possibly disconnected) algebraic noncompact hypersurface can be transformed onto a union of components of the zero set of a harmonic function via a diffeomorphism of $\RR^n$. The technique we use, which is a significant improvement of the basic strategy we recently applied to construct solutions to the Euler equation with knotted stream lines (Ann. of Math., in press), combines robust but not explicit local constructions with appropriate global approximation theorems. In view of applications to a problem of Berry and Dennis, intersections of level sets are also studied.
Given a smooth Riemannian manifold (M,g)we investigate the existence of positive solutions to a singularly perturbed supercritical elliptic equation which concentrate at some submanifold of M. We obtain a posive answer for some manifolds, which include warped products.
Let $(M,g)$ and $(K,κ)$ be two Riemannian manifolds of dimensions $m$ and $k ,$ respectively. Let $ω\in C^2(N),$ $ω> 0.$ The warped product $ M\times _ωK$ is the $ (m+k)$-dimensional product manifold $M\times K$ furnished with metric $ g+ω^2 κ.$ We prove that the supercritical problem $$-Δ_{g+ω^2 κ}u+h u=u^{ {m+2\over m-2} \pm\varepsilon},\ u>0,\ \hbox{in}\ (M\times _ωK,g+ω^2 κ)$$ has a solution which concentrate along a $k$-dimensional minimal submanifold $Γ$ of $M\times _ωN$ as the real parameter $\varepsilon$ goes to zero, provided the function $h$ and the sectional curvatures along $Γ$ sat…
In this paper we investigate the "area blow-up" set of a sequence of smooth co-dimension one manifolds whose first variation with respect to an anisotropic integral is bounded. Following the ideas introduced by White in (J. Differential Geom., 2016), we show that this set has bounded (anisotropic) mean curvature in the viscosity sense. In particular, this allows to show that the set is empty in a variety of situations. As a consequence, we show boundary curvature estimates for two dimensional stable anisotropic minimal surfaces, extending the results of (Invent. Math., 1987).
Using a mixture of classical and probabilistic techniques we investigate the convexity of solutions to the elliptic pde associated with a certain generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.
In this paper we extend the results of "A strong minimax property of nondegenerate minimal submanifolds" by White, where it is proved that any smooth, compact submanifold, which is a strictly stable critical point for an elliptic parametric functional, is the unique minimizer in a certain geodesic tubular neighbourhood. We prove a similar result, replacing the tubular neighbourhood with one induced by the flat distance and we provide quantitative estimates. Our proof is based on the introduction of a penalized minimization problem, in the spirit of "A selection principle for the sharp quantita…
We give full boundary extensions to two fundamental estimates in the theory of elliptic PDE, the weak Harnack inequality and the quantitative strong maximum principle, for uniformly elliptic equations in non-divergence form.
This manuscript aims to provide a self-contained introduction to the regularity theory for elliptic PDE, focusing on the main ideas rather than proving all results in their greatest generality. It can be seen as a bridge between an elementary PDE course and more advanced textbooks. This is a draft of the book "Regularity Theory for Elliptic PDE". The final version has been published in Zurich Lectures in Advanced Mathematics, EMS Press, 2022.
We derive a comparison principle for a degenerate elliptic partial differential equation without boundary conditions which arises naturally in optimal learning strategies. Our argument is direct and exploits the degeneracy of the differential operator to construct (logarithmically) diverging barriers.
In this study we prove the existence-uniqueness of a coupled non-linear elliptic PDE system using Lax-Milgram theorem, Galerkin Method, Brouwer's fixed point theorem. Later we derive the finite element scheme for the numerical solution of the PDE system and also carry out the convergence analysis for the derived scheme. Further successfully apply the scheme to an application related to free convection phenomena.
In this paper, we establish $L^{\infty}$ and $L^{p}$ estimates for solutions of some polyharmonic elliptic equations via the Morse index. As far as we know, it seems to be the first time that such explicit estimates are obtained for polyharmonic problems.
We show that two classically known properties of positive supersolutions of uniformly elliptic PDEs, the boundary point principle (Hopf lemma) and global integrability, can be quantified with respect to each other. We obtain an extension to the boundary of the de Giorgi-Moser weak Harnack inequality, optimal with respect to the norms involved, for equations in divergence form.
We prove the following theorem: if $w$ is a quasiconformal mapping of the unit disk onto itself satisfying elliptic partial differential inequality $|L[w]|\le \mathcal{B}|\nabla w|^2+Γ$, then $w$ is Lipschitz continuous. This {result} extends some recent results, where instead of an elliptic differential operator is {only} considered {the} Laplace operator.
We study exponential decay of eigenfunctions of self-adjoint higher order elliptic operators on $\R^d$. We show that the possible critical decay rates are determined algebraically. In addition we show absence of super-exponentially decaying eigenfunctions and a refined exponential upper bound.
We describe a new method of proving a priori bounds for positive supersolutions and solutions of superlinear elliptic PDE, based on global weak Harnack inequalities and a quantitative Hopf lemma. Novel results based on the method include: (i) equations without a boundary condition on the whole boundary; (ii) equations with nonlinearities which do not have precise growth at infinity; (iii) systems of inequalities with opposite sign.
We study exponential decay rates of eigenfunctions of self-adjoint higher order elliptic operators on R^n. We are interested in decay rates as a function of direction. We show that the possible decay rates are to a large extent determined algebraically.
We consider degenerated nonlinear PDE of elliptic type: $$ - \mathrm{div}(a(|x|)|\nabla w(x)|^{p-2} \nabla w(x)) + h(|x|,w(x),\langle\nabla w(x),\frac{x}{|x|}\rangle)=ϕ(w(x)), $$ where $x$ belongs to the ball in $\bf{R}^n$. Using the argument based on Opial-type inequalities, we investigate qualitative properties of their radial solutions, like e.g. maximum principles, monotonicity, as well as nonexistence of the nontrivial solutions.
We study the averaging behavior of nonlinear uniformly elliptic partial differential equations with random Dirichlet or Neumann boundary data oscillating on a small scale. Under conditions on the operator, the data and the random media leading to concentration of measure, we prove an almost sure and local uniform homogenization result with a rate of convergence in probability.
In this paper we study the Hausdorff dimension of a elliptic measure $μ_{f}$ in space associated to a positive weak solution to a certain quasilinear elliptic PDE in an open subset and vanishing on a portion of the boundary of that open set. We show that this measure is concentrated on a set of $σ-$finite $n-1$ dimensional Hausdorff measure for $p>n$ and the same result holds for $p=n$ with an assumption on the boundary. We also construct an example of a domain in space for which the corresponding measure has Hausdorff dimension $\leq n-1-δ$ for $p\geq n$ for some $δ$ which depends on various …
We prove regularity estimates for weak solutions to the Dirichlet problem for a divergence form elliptic operator. We give $L^p$ estimates for the second derivative for $p<2$. Our work generalizes results due to Miranda [28].
In this paper, we prove that there exists a unique weak solution to the mixed boundary value problem for a general class of semilinear second order elliptic partial differential equations with singular coefficients. Our approach is probabilistic. The theory of Dirichlet forms and backward stochastic differential equations with singular coefficients and infinite horizon plays a crucial role.
By exploiting an old idea first used by Pizzetti for the classical Laplacian, we introduce a notion of {\it asymptotic average solutions} making pointwise solvable every Poisson equation $\mathcal{L} u(x)=-f(x)$ with continuous data $f$, where $\mathcal{L}$ is a hypoelliptic linear partial differential operator with positive semidefinite characteristic form.
We analyze a second order, linear, elliptic PDE with mixed boundary conditions. This problem arose as a limiting case of a Markov-modulated queueing model for data handling switches in communications networks. We use singular perturbation methods to analyze the problem. In particular we use the ray method to solve the PDE in the limit where convection dominates diffusion. We show that there are both interior and boundary caustics, as well as a cusp point where two caustics meet, an internal layer, boundary layers and a corner layer. Our analysis leads to approximate formulas for the queue leng…
We prove non-uniqueness and study the behaviour of viscosity solutions of a class of uniformly elliptic fully nonlinear equations of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs type, with quadratic growth in the gradient. The crucial a priori bound for the solutions is proved through an argument which uses a boundary growth lemma, and consequences such as boundary "half"-Harnack inequalities, which are of independent interest. Our results are new even for linear equations.
We give sufficient conditions for some underdetermined elliptic PDE of any order to construct smooth compactly supported solutions. In particular we show that two smooth elements in the kernel of certain underdetermined linear elliptic operators $P$ can be glued in a chosen region in order to obtain a new smooth solution. This new solution is exactly equal to the starting elements outside the gluing region. This result completely contrasts with the usual unique continuation for determined or overdetermined elliptic operators. As a corollary we obtain compactly supported solutions in the kernel…
In this article, we will prove the existence of infinitely many positive weak solutions to the following nonlocal elliptic PDE. \begin{align} (-Δ)^s u&= \fracλ{u^γ}+ f(x,u)~\text{in}~Ω,\nonumber u&=0~\text{in}~\mathbb{R}^N\setminusΩ,\nonumber \end{align} where $Ω$ is an open bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^N$ with Lipschitz boundary, $N>2s$, $s\in (0,1)$, $γ\in (0,1)$. We will employ variational techniques to show the existence of infinitely many weak solutions of the above problem.
Let $Ω$ be a open bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n $ with smooth boundary $\partialΩ$. We consider the equation $ Δu + u^{\frac{n-k+2}{n-k-2}-\varepsilon} =0\,\hbox{ in }\,Ω$, under zero Dirichlet boundary condition, where $\varepsilon$ is a small positive parameter. We assume that there is a $k$-dimensional closed, embedded minimal submanifold $K$ of $\partialΩ$, which is non-degenerate, and along which a certain weighted average of sectional curvatures of $\partialΩ$ is negative. Under these assumptions, we prove existence of a sequence $\varepsilon=\varepsilon_j$ and a solution $u_{\varepsil…
Duke University（杜克大学）；University of Massachusetts（马萨诸塞大学）
Numerical solutions to high-dimensional partial differential equations (PDEs) based on neural networks have seen exciting developments. This paper derives complexity estimates of the solutions of $d$-dimensional second-order elliptic PDEs in the Barron space, that is a set of functions admitting the integral of certain parametric ridge function against a probability measure on the parameters. We prove under some appropriate assumptions that if the coefficients and the source term of the elliptic PDE lie in Barron spaces, then the solution of the PDE is $ε$-close with respect to the $H^1$ norm …
We obtain a global extension of the classical weak Harnack inequality which extends and quantifies the Hopf-Oleinik boundary-point lemma, for uniformly elliptic equations in divergence form. Among the consequences is a boundary gradient estimate, due to Krylov and well-studied for non-divergence form equations, but completely novel in the divergence framework. Another consequence is a new more general version of the Hopf-Oleinik lemma.
We develop a new, unified approach to the following two classical questions on elliptic PDE: the strong maximum principle for equations with non-Lipschitz nonlinearities, and the at most exponential decay of solutions in the whole space or exterior domains. Our results apply to divergence and nondivergence operators with locally unbounded lower-order coefficients, in a number of situations where all previous results required bounded ingredients. Our approach, which allows for relatively simple and short proofs, is based on a (weak) Harnack inequality with optimal dependence of the constants in…
We consider the inverse problem of determining a potential in a semilinear elliptic equation from the knowledge of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map. For bounded Euclidean domains we prove that the potential is uniquely determined by the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map measured at a single boundary point, or integrated against a fixed measure. This result is valid even when the Dirichlet data is only given on a small subset of the boundary. We also give related uniqueness results on Riemannian manifolds.
For a Jordan domain with sufficiently smooth boundaries, the solution to the Dirichlet problem for second order skew-symmetric strongly elliptic system with constant coefficients and regular enough boundary data is constructed in the form of a power series of a small parameter describing the perturbation of the given system from the Laplace one. The coefficients of this series are the functions that are determined sequentially as solutions to special Dirichlet problems for the usual Laplace and Poisson equations. The obtained series converges uniformly in the closure of the domain under consid…
In this paper, we prove $L^p$ estimates for the fractional derivatives of solutions to elliptic fractional partial differential equations whose coefficients are $VMO$. In particular, our work extends the optimal regularity known in the second order elliptic setting to a spectrum of fractional order elliptic equations.
The objective of this article is to study the boundary value problem for the general semilinear elliptic equation of second order involving $L^1$ functions or Radon measures with finite total variation. The study investigates the existence and uniqueness of `{\it very weak}' solutions to the boundary value problem for a given $L^1$ function. However, a `{\it very weak}' solution need not exist when an $L^1$ function is replaced with a measure due to which the corresponding reduced limits has been found for which the problem admits a solution in a `{\it very weak}' sense.
In this paper, we study second-order and fourth-order elliptic problems which include not only a Poisson equation in the bulk but also an inhomogeneous Laplace--Beltrami equation on the boundary of the domain. The bulk and the surface PDE are coupled by a boundary condition that is either of Dirichlet or Robin type. We point out that both the Dirichlet and the Robin type boundary condition can be handled simultaneously through our formalism without having to change the framework. Moreover, we investigate the eigenvalue problems associated with these second-order and fourth-order elliptic syste…
We study ground state solutions for linear and nonlinear elliptic PDEs in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with (pseudo-)differential operators of arbitrary order. We prove a general symmetry result in the nonlinear case as well as a uniqueness result for ground states in the linear case. In particular, we can deal with problems (e.\,g. higher order PDEs) that cannot be tackled by usual methods such as maximum principles, moving planes, or Polya--Szegö inequalities. Instead, we use arguments based on the Fourier transform and we apply a rigidity result for the Hardy-Littlewood majorant problem in $\mathbb{R}^n$…
Hybrid inverse problems are based on the interplay of two types of waves, in order to allow for imaging with both high resolution and high contrast. The inversion procedure often consists of two steps: first, internal measurements involving the unknown parameters and some related quantities are obtained, and, second, the unknown parameters have to be reconstructed from the internal data. The reconstruction in the second step requires the solutions of certain PDE to satisfy some non-zero constraints, such as the absence of nodal or critical points, or a non-vanishing Jacobian. In this work, we …
We consider the nonlinear Neumann problem for fully nonlinear elliptic PDEs on a quadrant. We establish a comparison theorem for viscosity sub and supersolutions of the nonlinear Neumann problem. The crucial argument in the proof of the comparison theorem is to build a $C^{1,1}$ test function which takes care of the nonlinear Neumann boundary condition. A similar problem has been treated on a general $n$-dimensional orthant by Biswas, Ishii, Subhamay, and Wang [SIAM J. Control Optim. 55 (2017), pp. 365--396], where the functions ($H_i$ in the main text) describing the boundary condition are re…
Starting with an adjoint pair of operators, under suitable abstract versions of standard PDE hypotheses, we consider the Weyl M-function of extensions of the operators. The extensions are determined by abstract boundary conditions and we establish results on the relationship between the M-function as an analytic function of a spectral parameter and the spectrum of the extension. We also give an example where the M-function does not contain the whole spectral information of the resolvent, and show that the results can be applied to elliptic PDEs where the M-function corresponds to the Dirichlet…
In this paper we derive a propagation of smallness result for a scalar second elliptic equation in divergence form whose leading order coefficients are Lipschitz continuous on two sides of a $C^2$ hypersurface that crosses the domain, but may have jumps across this hypersurface. Our propagation of smallness result is in the most general form regarding the locations of domains, which may intersect the interface of discontinuity. At the end, we also list some consequences of the propagation of smallness result, including stability results for the associated Cauchy problem, a propagation of small…
It was recently shown by the authors that a semilinear elliptic equation can be represented as an infinite-dimensional dynamical system in terms of boundary data on a shrinking one-parameter family of domains. The resulting system is ill-posed, in the sense that solutions do not typically exist forward or backward in time. In this paper we consider a radial family of domains and prove that the linearized system admits an exponential dichotomy, with the unstable subspace corresponding to the boundary data of weak solutions to the linear PDE. This generalizes the spatial dynamics approach, which…
We mainly investigate some properties of quasiconformal mappings between smooth 2-dimensional surfaces with boundary in the Euclidean space, satisfying certain partial differential equations (inequalities) concerning Laplacian, and in particular satisfying Laplace equation and show that that these mappings are Lipschitz. Conformal parametrization of such surfaces and the method developed in our paper \cite{km} have important role in this paper.dan curves and is extended to the case of $C^{2,α}$ surfaces with smooth and compact boundary.
We study a modified version of an initial-boundary value problem describing the formation of colony patterns of bacteria \textit{Escherichia Coli}. The original system of three parabolic equations was studied numerically and analytically and gave insights into the underlying mechanisms of chemotaxis. We focus here on the parabolic-elliptic-parabolic approximation and the hyperbolic-elliptic-parabolic limiting system which describes the case of pure chemotactic movement without random diffusion. We first construct local-in-time solutions for the parabolic-elliptic-parabolic system. Then we prov…
In this paper we generalise the results proved in [N. Katzourakis, An $L^\infty$ regularisation strategy to the inverse source identification problem for elliptic equations, SIAM J. Math. Anal. 51:2, 1349-1370 (2019)] by studying the ill-posed problem of identifying the source of a fully nonlinear elliptic equation. We assume Dirichlet data and some partial noisy information for the solution on a compact set through a fully nonlinear observation operator. We deal with the highly nonlinear nonconvex nature of the problem and the lack of weak continuity by introducing a two-parameter Tykhonov re…
We consider a second-order parabolic equation in $\bR^{d+1}$ with possibly unbounded lower order coefficients. All coefficients are assumed to be only measurable in the time variable and locally Hölder continuous in the space variables. We show that global Schauder estimates hold even in this case. The proof introduces a new localization procedure. Our results show that the constant appearing in the classical Schauder estimates is in fact independent of the $L_{\infty}$-norms of the lower order coefficients. We also give a proof of uniqueness which is of independent interest even in the case o…
We consider an elliptic Kolmogorov equation $λu - Ku = f$ in a separable Hilbert space $H$. The Kolmogorov operator $K$ is associated to an infinite dimensional convex gradient system: $dX = (AX - DU(X))dt + dW (t)$, where $A $ is a self--adjoint operator in $H$ and $U$ is a convex lower semicontinuous function. Under mild assumptions we prove that for $λ>0$ and $f\in L^2(H,ν)$ the weak solution $u$ belongs to the Sobolev space $W^{2,2}(H,ν)$, where $ν$ is the log-concave probability measure of the system. Moreover maximal estimates on the gradient of $u$ are proved. The maximal regularity res…
In this paper, we prove the existence of multiple solutions for a nonlinear nonlocal elliptic PDE involving a singularity which is given as \begin{eqnarray} (-Δ_p)^s u&=& \fracλ{u^γ}+u^q~\text{in}~Ω,\nonumber u&=&0~\text{in}~\mathbb{R}^N\setminusΩ,\nonumber u&>& 0~\text{in}~Ω\nonumber, \end{eqnarray} where $Ω$ is an open bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^N$ with smooth boundary, $N>ps$, $s\in (0,1)$, $λ>0$, $0<γ<1$, $1<p<\infty$, $p-1<q\leq p_s^{*}=\frac{Np}{N-ps}$. We employ variational techniques to show the existence of multiple positive weak solutions of the above problem. We also prove that f…
