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 notion of principal eigenvalue, some of which had already been used in the literature for particular classes of operators.
In this paper, we apply the moving plane method to some degenerate elliptic equations to get a Liouville type theorem. As an application, we derive the a priori bounds for positive solutions of some semi-linear degenerate elliptic equations.
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.
The present paper is concerned a class of quasi-linear elliptic degenerate equations. The degenerate operator comes from the analysis of manifolds with corner singularity. Variational methods are applied to verify the existence of infinity many solutions for the problems.
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 prove a comparison principle for weak solutions of elliptic quasilinear equations in divergence form whose ellipticity constants degenerate at every point where $\nabla u \in K$, where $K\subset \mathbb{R}^N$ is a Borel set containing the origin.
Examples are given of degenerate elliptic operators on smooth, compact manifolds that are not globally regular in $C^\infty$. These operators degenerate only in a rather mild fashion. Certain weak regularity results are proved, and an interpretation of global irregularity in terms of the associated heat semigroup is given.
An elliptic equation div(F(Du)) = f whose ellipticity strongly degenerates for small values of Du (say, F = 0 on B(0,1)) is considered. The aim is to prove regularity for F(Du). The paper proves a continuity result in dimension two and presents some applications.
We establish an optimal C^{1,α}-regularity for viscosity solutions of degenerate/singular fully nonlinear elliptic equations by finding minimal regularity requirements on the associated operator.
In this article we study an elliptic problem with degenerate coercivity. We will show that the presence of some lower order terms has a regularizing effect on the solutions.
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.
We investigate the homogeneous Dirichlet problem in uniformly convex domains for a large class of degenerate elliptic equations with singular zero order term. In particular we establish sharp existence and uniqueness results of positive viscosity solutions.
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 princi…
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 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 paper we establish the optimal interior regularity and the $C^{1,γ}$ smoothness of the regular part of the free boundary in the thin obstacle problem for a class of degenerate elliptic equations with variable coefficients.
We show an existence of a weak solution of a degenerate and/or singular semilinear elliptic boundary value (nonhomogeneous) problem lying between a given weak subsolution and a given weak supersolution. It has been applied for an existence result of large solution to a similar problem.
This paper is concerned with semiconcavity of viscosity solutions for a class of degenerate elliptic integro-differential equations in $\mathbb R^n$. This class of equations includes Bellman equations containing operators of Lévy-Itô type. Hölder and Lipschitz continuity of viscosity solutions for a more general class of degenerate elliptic integro-differential equations are also provided.
We give sufficient conditions under which the convergence of finite difference approximations in the space variable of possibly degenerate second order parabolic and elliptic equations can be accelerated to any given order of convergence by Richardson's method.
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.
We use the method of sliding paraboloids to establish a Harnack inequality for linear, degenerate and singular elliptic equation with unbounded lower order terms. The equations we consider include uniformly elliptic equations and linearized Monge-Ampère equations. Our argument allows us to prove the doubling estimate for functions which, at points of large gradient, are solutions of (degenerate and singular) elliptic equations with unbounded drift.
We study an eigenvalue problem involving a degenerate and singular elliptic operator on the whole space $\mathbb{R}^N$. We prove the existence of an unbounded and increasing sequence of eigenvalues. Our study generalizes to the case of degenerate and singular operators a result of A. Szulkin and M. Willem.
We consider an one-phase free boundary problem for a degenerate fully non-linear elliptic operators with non-zero right hand side. We use the approach present in \cite{DeSilva} to prove that flat free boundaries and Lipschitz free boundaries are $C^{1, γ}$.
We provide the Alexandroff-Bakelman-Pucci estimate and global $C^{1, α}$-regularity for a class of singular/degenerate fully nonlinear elliptic equations. We also derive the existence of a viscosity solution to the Dirichlet problem with the associated operator.
In this paper, we obtain the strong comparison principle and Hopf Lemma for locally Lipschitz viscosity solutions to a class of nonlinear degenerate elliptic operators of the form $\nabla^2 ψ+ L(x,\nabla ψ)$, including the conformal hessian operator.
In this paper, we study fully non-linear elliptic equations in non-divergence form which can be degenerate when "the gradient is small". Typical examples are either equations involving the $m$-Laplace operator or Bellman-Isaacs equations from stochastic control problems. We establish an Alexandroff-Bakelman-Pucci estimate and we prove a Harnack inequality for viscosity solutions of such degenerate elliptic equations.
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)…
This paper studies the Sobolev regularity of weak solution of degenerate elliptic equations in divergence form $\text{div}[\mathbf{A}(X) \nabla u] = \text{div}[\mathbf{F}(X)]$, where $X = (x,y) \in \mathbb{R}^{n} \times \mathbb{R}$ . The coefficient matrix $\mathbf{A}(X)$ is a symmetric, measurable $(n+1) \times (n+1)$ matrix, and it could be degenerate or singular in the one dimensional $y$-variable as a weight function in the Muckenhoupt class $A_2$ of weights. Our results give weighted Sobolev regularity estimates of Calderón-Zygmund type for weak solutions of this class of singular, degene…
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 study a Dirichlet problem in the entire space for some nonlocal degenerate elliptic operators with internal nonlinearities. With very mild assumptions on the boundary datum, we prove existence and uniqueness of the solution in the viscosity sense. If we further assume uniform ellipticity then the solution is shown to be classical, and even smooth if both the operator and the boundary datum are smooth.
In this paper we study a Dirichlet problem for an elliptic equation with degenerate coercivity and a singular lower order term with natural growth with respect to the gradient. We will show that, even if the lower order term is singular, it has some regularizing effects on the solutions
We prove existence and non existence results for fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic inequalities, by showing that the classical Keller--Osserman condition on the zero order term is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of entire sub solutions.
In the present paper, we study sharp C^{1;α} regularity results with boundary Neumann condition for viscosity solutions for a class of degenerate fully non-linear elliptic equations with Neumann boundary conditions.
This paper deals with global existence and uniqueness for the lake equations with a bottom topography vanishing on the shore. Our result generalizes previous studies that assumed the depth to be nondegenerate. Elliptic estimates for degenerate equations has to be established studying the behavior of the associated Green function.
We prove the Kato conjecture for degenerate elliptic operators in R^n. More precisely, we consider the divergence form operator L_w = -1/w div (wA) grad, where w is a Muckenhoupt A_2 weight and A is a complex valued n x n matrix which is bounded and uniformly elliptic. We show that if the associated semigroup satisfies Gaussian upper bounds, then the Kato square root estimate holds.
In this paper, we prove the N-barrier maximum principle, which extends the result in [5] from linear diffusion equations to nonlinear diffusion equations, for a wide class of degenerate elliptic systems of porous medium type. The N-barrier maximum principle provides a priori upper and lower bounds of the solutions to the above-mentioned degenerate nonlinear diffusion equations including the Shigesada-Kawasaki-Teramoto model as a special case. As an application of the N-barrier maximum principle to a coexistence problem in ecology, we show the nonexistence of waves in a three-species degenerate…
It is shown by means of reiterated two-scale convergence in the Sobolev-Orlicz setting, that the sequence of solutions of a class of highly oscillatory problems involving nonlinear elliptic operators with nonstandard growth, converges to a solution of a suitable homogeneous nonlinear elliptic equation associated to an operator with nonstandard growth.
This paper is devoted to the study of degenerate critical elliptic equations of Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg type. By means of blow-up analysis techniques, we prove an a-priori estimate in a weighted space of continuous functions. From this compactness result, the existence of a solution to our problem is proved by exploiting the homotopy invariance of the Leray-Schauder degree.
The aim of this paper is to establish regularity for weak solutions to the nondiagonal quasilinear degenerate elliptic systems related to Hörmander's vector fields, where the coefficients are bounded with vanishing mean oscillation. We first prove $L^p$($p \ge 2$) estimates for gradients of weak solutions by using a priori estimates and a known reverse Hölder inequality, and consider regularity to the corresponding nondiagonal homogeneous degenerate elliptic systems. Then we get higher Morrey and Campanato estimates for gradients of weak solutions to original systems and Hölder estimates for w…
We study a nonlinear equation with an elliptic operator having degenerate coercivity. We prove the existence of a unique W^{1,1}_0 distributional solution under suitable summability assumptions on the source in Lebesgue spaces. Moreover, we prove that our problem has no solution if the source is a Radon measure concentrated on a set of zero harmonic capacity.
We establish the local Lipschitz continuity and the higher differentiability of vector-valued local minimizers of a class of energy integrals of the Calculus of Variations. The main novelty is that we deal with possibly degenerate energy densities with respect to the x-variable.
In this paper, we apply the moving plane method to the following high order degenerate elliptic equation,\begin{equation*} (-A)^p u=u^α\text{ in } \mathbb R^{n+1}_+,n\geq 1, \end{equation*}where the operator $A=y\partial_y^2+a\partial_y+Δ_x,a\geq 1$. We get a Liouville theorem for subcritical case and classify the solutions for the critical case.
In the present paper, a class of fully non-linear elliptic equations are considered, which are degenerate as the gradient becomes small. Hölder estimates obtained by the first author (2011) are combined with new Lipschitz estimates obtained through the Ishii-Lions method in order to get $C^{1,α}$ estimates for solutions of these equations.
