We consider time-harmonic wave scattering from an inhomogeneous isotropic medium supported in a bounded domain $Ω\subset\mathbb{R}^N$ ($N\geq 2$). {In a subregion $D\SubsetΩ$, the medium is supposed to be lossy and have a large mass density. We study the asymptotic development of the wave field as the mass density $ρ\rightarrow +\infty$} and show that the wave field inside $D$ will decay exponentially while the wave filed outside the medium will converge to the one corresponding to a sound-hard obstacle $D\SubsetΩ$ buried in the medium supported in $Ω\backslash\bar{D}$. Moreover, the normal velocity of the wave field on $\partial D$ from outside $D$ is shown to be vanishing as $ρ\rightarrow +\infty$. {We derive very accurate estimates for the wave field inside and outside $D$ and on $\partial D$ in terms of $ρ$, and show that the asymptotic estimates are sharp. The implication of the obtained results is given for an inverse scattering problem of reconstructing a complex scatterer.}
Consider the scattering of time-harmonic point sources by an infinite locally rough interface with bounded obstacles embedded in the lower half-space. The model problem is first reduced to an equivalent integral equation formulation defined in a bounded domain, where the well-posedness is obtained in $L^p$ by the classical Fredholm theory. Then a global uniqueness theorem is proved for the inverse problem of recovering the locally rough interface, the embedded obstacles and the wave number in the lower-half space by means of near-field measurements above the interface.
In this paper, we consider an inverse conductivity problem on a bounded domain $Ω\subset\mathbb{R}^n$, $n\geq2$, also known as Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), for the case where unknown impenetrable obstacles are embedded into $Ω$. We show that a piecewise-constant conductivity function and embedded obstacles can be simultaneously recovered in terms of the local Dirichlet-to-Neumann map defined on an arbitrary small open subset of the boundary of the domain $Ω$. The method depends on the well-posedness of a coupled PDE-system constructed for the conductivity equations in the $H^1$-space…
We consider the time-harmonic elastic wave scattering from a general (possibly anisotropic) inhomogeneous medium with an embedded impenetrable obstacle. We show that the impenetrable obstacle can be effectively approximated by an isotropic elastic medium with a particular choice of material parameters. We derive sharp estimates to rigorously verify such an effective approximation. Our study is strongly motivated by the related studies of two challenging inverse elastic problems including the inverse boundary problem with partial data and the inverse scattering problem of recovering mediums wit…
A mathematical method for through-wall imaging via wave phenomena in the time domain is introduced. The method makes use of a single reflected wave over a finite time interval and gives us a criterion whether a penetrable obstacle exists or not in a general rough background medium. Moreover, if the obstacle exists, the lower and upper estimates of the distance between the obstacle and the center point of the support of the initial data are given. As an evidence of the potential of the method two applications are also given.
In this paper we establish the exact growth of the solution of the singular quasilinear p-parabolic obstacle problem near the free boundary from which we deduce its porosity.
In this paper, we are concerned with the inverse electromagnetic scattering problem of recovering a complex scatterer by the corresponding electric far-field data. The complex scatterer consists of an inhomogeneous medium and a possibly embedded perfectly electric conducting (PEC) obstacle. The far-field data are collected corresponding to incident plane waves with a fixed incident direction and a fixed polarisation, but frequencies from an open interval. It is shown that the embedded obstacle can be uniquely recovered by the aforementioned far-field data, independent of the surrounding medium…
This paper is concerned with the self-improving property for obstacle problem related to the singular porous medium equation. We establish a local higher integrability result for the spatial gradient of the $m$-th power of nonnegative weak solutions, under some suitable regularity assumptions on the obstacle function.
We consider an inverse acoustic scattering problem in simultaneously recovering an embedded obstacle and its surrounding inhomogeneous medium by formally determined far-field data. It is shown that the knowledge of the scattering amplitude with a fixed incident direction and all observation angles along with frequencies from an open interval can be used to uniquely identify the embedded obstacle, sound-soft or sound-hard disregarding the surrounding medium. Furthermore, if the surrounding inhomogeneous medium is from an admissible class (still general), then the medium can be recovered as well…
In this work, we consider the singular set in the thin obstacle problem with weight $|x_{n+1}|^a$ for $a\in (-1, 1)$, which arises as the local extension of the obstacle problem for the fractional Laplacian (a non-local problem). We develop a refined expansion of the solution around its singular points by building on the ideas introduced by Figalli and Serra to study the fine properties of the singular set in the classical obstacle problem. As a result, under a superharmonicity condition on the obstacle, we prove that each stratum of the singular set is locally contained in a single $C^2$ mani…
We study the singular part of the free boundary in the obstacle problem for the fractional Laplacian, \ $\min\bigl\{(-Δ)^su,\,u-φ\bigr\}=0$ in $\mathbb R^n$, for general obstacles $φ$. Our main result establishes the complete structure and regularity of the singular set. To prove it, we construct new monotonicity formulas of Monneau-type that extend those in \cite{GP} to all $s\in(0,1)$.
Let $A\in\mathrm{Sym}(n\times n)$ be an elliptic 2-tensor. Consider the anisotropic fractional Schrödinger operator $\mathscr{L}_A^s+q$, where $\mathscr{L}_A^s:=(-\nabla\cdot(A(x)\nabla))^s$, $s\in (0, 1)$ and $q\in L^\infty$. We are concerned with the simultaneous recovery of $q$ and possibly embedded soft or hard obstacles inside $q$ by the exterior Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) map outside a bounded domain $Ω$ associated with $\mathscr{L}_A^s+q$. It is shown that a single measurement can uniquely determine the embedded obstacle, independent of the surrounding potential $q$. If multiple measure…
In this note, we prove the uniqueness of blowups at singular points of the no-sign obstacle problem $Δu=χ_{_{B_1\backslash \{u=|Du|=0\}}}\ \text{in}\ B_1,$ thus give a positive answer to a problem raised in \cite[Notes of Chaper 7, page 149]{PSU12}.
We revisit and sharpen the results from our previous work, where we investigated the regularity of the singular set of the free boundary in the nonlinear obstacle problem. As in the work of Figalli-Serra on the classical obstacle problem, we show that each stratum can be further decomposed into a `good' part and an `anomalous' part, where the former is covered by $C^{1,1-}$ manifolds, and the latter is of lower dimension.
In this paper we will investigate the singular points of the following unstable free boundary problem: {equation}\label{Eq} Δu= -χ_{\{u>0\}} \quad\quad\textrm{in} B_1(0) {equation} where $χ_{\{u>0\}}$ is the characteristic function of the set $\{u>0\}$.
We study the singular set in the thin obstacle problem for degenerate parabolic equations with weight $|y|^a$ for $a \in (-1,1)$. Such problem arises as the local extension of the obstacle problem for the fractional heat operator $(\partial_t - Δ_x)^s$ for $s \in (0,1)$. Our main result establishes the complete structure and regularity of the singular set of the free boundary. To achieve it, we prove Almgren-Poon, Weiss, and Monneau type monotonicity formulas which generalize those for the case of the heat equation ($a=0$).
We consider the case of scattering of several obstacles in $\mathbb{R}^d$ for $d \geq 2$ for the Laplace operator $Δ$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions imposed on the obstacles. In the case of two obstacles, we have the Laplace operators $Δ_1$ and $Δ_2$ obtained by imposing Dirichlet boundary conditions only on one of the objects. The relative trace operator $g(Δ) - g(Δ_1) - g(Δ_2) + g(Δ_0)$ was introduced in [18] and shown to be trace-class for a large class of functions $g$, including certrain functions of polynomial growth. When $g$ is sufficiently regular at zero and fast decaying at infi…
We deal with a global Calderón-Zygmund type estimate for elliptic obstacle problems of $p$-Laplacian type with measure data. For this paper, we focus on the singular case of growth exponent, i.e. $1<p \le 2-\frac{1}{n}$. In addition, the emphasis of this paper is in obtaining the Lorentz bounds for the gradient of solutions with the use of fractional maximal operators.
More than ten years ago Ikehata discovered two mathematical methods for the purpose of extracting information about the location and shape of unknown discontinuity embedded in a known background medium from observation data. The methods are called the probe and enclosure methods. This paper presents their past and recent applications to inverse obstacle scattering problems of acoustic wave.
For the obstacle problem involving a convex fully nonlinear elliptic operator, we show that the singular set in the free boundary stratifies. The top stratum is locally covered by a $C^{1,α}$-manifold, and the lower strata are covered by $C^{1,\log^\varepsilon}$-manifolds. This essentially recovers the regularity result obtained by Figalli-Serra when the operator is the Laplacian.
We construct two new one-parameter families of monotonicity formulas to study the free boundary points in the lower dimensional obstacle problem. The first one is a family of Weiss type formulas geared for points of any given homogeneity and the second one is a family of Monneau type formulas suited for the study of singular points. We show the uniqueness and continuous dependence of the blowups at singular points of given homogeneity. This allows to prove a structural theorem for the singular set. Our approach works both for zero and smooth non-zero lower dimensional obstacles. The study in t…
We obtain sharp local $C^{1,α}$ regularity of solutions for singular obstacle problems, Euler-Lagrange equation of which is given by $$ Δ_p u=γ(u-φ)^{γ-1}\,\text{ in }\,\{u>φ\}, $$ for $0<γ<1$ and $p\ge2$. At the free boundary $\partial\{u>φ\}$, we prove optimal $C^{1,τ}$ regularity of solutions, with $τ$ given explicitly in terms of $p$, $γ$ and smoothness of $φ$, which is new even in the linear setting.
A free boundary problem arising from materials science is studied in one-dimensional case. The problem studied here is an obstacle problem for the non-convex energy consisting of a bending energy, tension and an adhesion energy. If the bending energy, which is a higher order term, is deleted then "edge" singularities of the solutions (surfaces) may occur at the free boundary as Alt-Caffarelli type variational problems. The main result of this paper is to give a singular limit of the energy utilizing the notion of $Γ$-convergence, when the bending energy can be regarded as a perturbation. This …
This paper considers the inverse problem of scattering of time-harmonic acoustic and electromagnetic plane waves by a bounded, inhomogeneous, penetrable obstacle with embedded objects inside. A new method is proposed to prove that the inhomogeneous penetrable obstacle can be uniquely determined from the far-field pattern at a fixed frequency, disregarding its contents. Our method is based on constructing a well-posed interior transmission problem in a small domain associated with the Helmholtz or modified Helmholtz equation and the Maxwell or modified Maxwell equations. A key role is played by…
For the general obstacle problem, we prove by direct methods an epiperimetric inequality at regular and singular points, thus answering a question of Weiss (Invent. Math., 138 (1999), 23--50). In particular at singular points we introduce a new tool, which we call logarithmic epiperimetric inequality, which yields an explicit logarithmic modulus of continuity on the $C^1$ regularity of the singular set, thus improving previous results of Caffarelli and Monneau.
Recent work by Serfaty and Serra give a formula for the velocity of the free boundary of the obstacle problem at regular points [Serfaty-Serra 2018], and much older work by King, Lacey, and Vazquez gives an example of a singular free boundary point (in the Hele-Shaw flow) that remains stationary for a positive amount of time [King-Lacey-Vazquez 1995]. The authors show how singular free boundaries in the obstacle problem in some settings move immediately in response to varying data. Three applications of this result are given, and in particular, the authors show a uniqueness result: For suffici…
In this paper, we prove the regularity of the free boundary in the Monge-Ampère obstacle problem $\det D^2 v= f(y)χ_{\{v>0\}}. $ By duality, the regularity of the free boundary is equivalent to that of the asymptotic cone of the solution to the singular Monge-Ampère equation $\det D^2 u = 1/f (Du)+δ_0$ at the origin. We first establish an asymptotic estimate for the solution $u$ near the singular point, then use a partial Legendre transform to change the Monge-Ampère equation to a singular, fully nonlinear elliptic equation, and establish the regularity of solutions to the singular elliptic eq…
We study the parabolic obstacle problem $$\lap u-u_t=fχ_{\{u>0\}}, \quad u\geq 0,\quad f\in L^p \quad \mbox{with}\quad f(0)=1$$ and obtain two monotonicity formulae, one that applies for general free boundary points and one for singular free boundary points. These are used to prove a second order Taylor expansion at singular points (under a pointwise Dini condition), with an estimate of the error (under a pointwise double Dini condition). Moreover, under the assumption that $f$ is Dini continuous, we prove that the set of regular points is locally a (parabolic) $C^1$-surface and that the set o…
We study the free boundary of solutions to the parabolic obstacle problem with fully nonlinear diffusion. We show that the free boundary splits into a regular and a singular part: near regular points the free boundary is $C^\infty$ in space and time. Furthermore, we prove that the set of singular points is locally covered by a Lipschitz manifold of dimension $n-1$ which is also $\varepsilon$-flat in space, for any $\varepsilon>0$.
The goal of this paper is to establish generic regularity of free boundaries for the obstacle problem in $\mathbb R^n$. By classical results of Caffarelli, the free boundary is $C^\infty$ outside a set of singular points. Explicit examples show that the singular set could be in general $(n-1)$-dimensional ---that is, as large as the regular set. Our main result establishes that, generically, the singular set has zero $\mathcal H^{n-4}$ measure (in particular, it has codimension 3 inside the free boundary). In particular, for $n\leq4$, the free boundary is generically a $C^\infty$ manifold. Thi…
We consider the time-harmonic acoustic wave scattering by a bounded {\it anisotropic inhomogeneity} embedded in an unbounded {\it anisotropic} homogeneous medium. The material parameters may have discontinuities across the interface between the inhomogeneous interior and homogeneous exterior regions. The corresponding mathematical problem is formulated as a transmission problems for a second order elliptic partial differential equation of Helmholtz type with discontinuous variable coefficients. Using a localised quasi-parametrix based on the harmonic fundamental solution, the transmission prob…
The repulsion strength at the origin for repulsive/attractive potentials determines the regularity of local minimizers of the interaction energy. In this paper, we show that if this repulsion is like Newtonian or more singular than Newtonian (but still locally integrable), then the local minimizers must be locally bounded densities (and even continuous for more singular than Newtonian repulsion). We prove this (and some other regularity results) by first showing that the potential function associated to a local minimizer solves an obstacle problem and then by using classical regularity results…
We construct convex functions on $\mathbb{R}^3$ and $\mathbb{R}^4$ that are smooth solutions to the Monge-Ampère equation $\det D^2u = 1$ away from compact one-dimensional singular sets, which can be Y-shaped or form the edges of a convex polytope. The examples solve the equation in the Alexandrov sense away from finitely many points. Our approach is based on solving an obstacle problem where the graph of the obstacle is a convex polytope.
In this article, we consider Leray solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in the exterior of one obstacle in 3D and we study the asymptotic behavior of these solutions when the obstacle shrinks to a curve or to a surface. In particular, we will prove that a solid curve has no effect on the motion of a viscous fluid, so it is a removable singularity for these equations.
This paper is concerned with reconstruction issue of inverse obstacle problems governed by partial differential equations and consists of two parts. (i) The first part considers the foundation of the probe and enclosure methods for an impenetrable obstacle embedded in a medium governed by the stationary Schrödinger equation. Under a general framework, some natural estimates for a quantity computed from a pair of the Dirichlet and Neumann data on the outer surface of the body occupied by the medium are given. The estimates enables us to derive almost immediately the necessary asymptotic behavio…
We are concerned with a priori estimates for the obstacle problem of a wide class of fully nonlinear equations on Riemannian manifolds. We use new techniques introduced by Bo Guan and derive new results for a priori second order estimates of its singular perturbation problem under fairly general conditions. By approximation, the existence of a C^{1,1} viscosity solution is proved.
In the classical obstacle problem, the free boundary can be decomposed into "regular" and "singular" points. As shown by Caffarelli in his seminal papers \cite{C77,C98}, regular points consist of smooth hypersurfaces, while singular points are contained in a stratified union of $C^1$ manifolds of varying dimension. In two dimensions, this $C^1$ result has been improved to $C^{1,α}$ by Weiss \cite{W99}. In this paper we prove that, for $n=2$ singular points are locally contained in a $C^2$ curve. In higher dimension $n\ge 3$, we show that the same result holds with $C^{1,1}$ manifolds (or with …
An inverse obstacle problem for the wave equation in a two layered medium is considered. It is assumed that the unknown obstacle is penetrable and embedded in the lower half-space. The wave as a solution of the wave equation is generated by an initial data whose support is in the upper half-space and observed at the same place as the support over a finite time interval. From the observed wave an indicator function in the time domain enclosure method is constructed. It is shown that, one can find some information about the geometry of the obstacle together with the qualitative property in the a…
We prove existence of weak solutions to the obstacle problem for semilinear wave equations (including the fractional case) by using a suitable approximating scheme in the spirit of minimizing movements. This extends the results in [9], where the linear case was treated. In addition, we deduce some compactness properties of concentration sets (e.g. moving interfaces) when dealing with singular limits of certain nonlinear wave equations.
For the thin obstacle problem, we prove by a new direct method that in any dimension the Weiss' energies with frequency $\frac32$ and $2m$, for $m\in \mathbb N$, satisfy an epiperimetric inequality, in the latter case of logarithmic type. In particular, at difference from the classical statements, we do not assume any a priori closeness to a special class of homogeneous functions. In dimension $2$, we also prove the epiperimetric inequality at any free boundary point. As a first application, we improve the set of admissible frequencies for blow ups, previously known to be $λ\in \{\frac32\} \cu…
The wave equation is time-reversal invariant. The enclosure method using a Neumann data generated by this invariance is introduced. The method yields the minimum ball that is centered at a given arbitrary point and encloses an unknown obstacle embedded in a known bounded domain from a single point on the graph of the so-called response operator on the boundary of the domain over a finite time interval. The occurrence of the lacuna in the solution of the free space wave equation is positively used.
This paper is a follow-up of article [Gerard-Varet and Lacave, ARMA 2013], on the existence of global weak solutions to the two dimensional Euler equations in singular domains. In [Gerard-Varet and Lacave, ARMA 2013], we have established the existence of weak solutions for a large class of bounded domains, with initial vorticity in $L^p$ ($p>1$). For unbounded domains, we have proved a similar result only when the initial vorticity is in $L^p_{c}$ ($p>2$) and when the domain is the exterior of a single obstacle. The goal here is to retrieve these two restrictions: we consider general initial v…
