We extend several well-known tools from the theory of second-order divergence-form elliptic equations to the case of higher-order equations. These tools are the Caccioppoli inequality, Meyers's reverse Holder inequality for gradients, and the fundamental solution. Our construction of the fundamental solution may also be of interest in the theory of second-order operators, as we impose no regularity assumptions on our elliptic operator beyond ellipticity and boundedness of coefficients.
This is a survey of results mostly relating elliptic equations and systems of arbitrary even order with rough coefficients in Lipschitz graph domains. Asymptotic properties of solutions at a point of a Lipschitz boundary are also discussed.
In this paper we establish square-function estimates on the double and single layer potentials with rough inputs for divergence form elliptic operators, of arbitrary even order 2m, with variable t-independent coefficients in the upper half-space.
We prove a $C^{1,α}$ interior regularity theorem for fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic integro-differential equations without assuming any regularity of the kernel. We then give some applications to linear theory and higher regularity of a special class of nonlinear operators.
We investigate a general elliptic problem given in a bounded Euclidean domain with boundary data in Nikolskii spaces of low, specifically, negative order. The right-hand side of the elliptic differential equation is supposed to be an integrable function. We establish the Fredholm property of the problem, the maximal regularity and a priori estimate of its generalized solutions in the spaces indicated. We give an application of these results to some elliptic problems with boundary conditions induced by a Gaussian white noise.
We investigate regular elliptic boundary-value problems in bounded domains and show the Fredholm property for the related operators in an extended scale formed by inner product Sobolev spaces (of arbitrary real orders) and corresponding interpolation Hilbert spaces. In particular, we can deal with boundary data with arbitrary low regularity. In addition, we show interpolation properties for the extended scale, embedding results, and global and local a priori estimates for solutions to the problems under investigation. The results are applied to elliptic problems with homogeneous right-hand sid…
We study the Dirichlet problem in Lipschitz domains and with boundary data in Besov spaces, for divergence form strongly elliptic systems of arbitrary order, with bounded, complex-valued coefficients. Our main result gives a sharp condition on the local mean oscillations of the coefficients of the differential operator and the unit normal to the boundary (which is automatically satisfied if these functions belong to space VMO) guaranteeing that the solution operator associated with this problem is an isomorphism.
In this paper we study existence and spectral properties for weak solutions of Neumann and Dirichlet problems associated to second order linear degenerate elliptic partial differential operators $X$, with rough coefficients of the form $$X=-\text{div}(P\nabla )+{\bf HR}+{\bf S^\prime G} +F$$ in a geometric homogeneous space setting where the $n\times n$ matrix function $P=P(x)$ is allowed to degenerate. We give a maximum principle for weak solutions of $Xu\leq 0$ and follow this with a result describing a relationship between compact projection of the degenerate Sobolev space $QH^{1,p}$ into $…
We settle the issue of well-posedness for the Dirichlet problem for a higher order elliptic system ${\mathcal L}(x,D_x)$ with complex-valued, bounded, measurable coefficients in a Lipschitz domain $Ω$, with boundary data in Besov spaces. The main hypothesis under which our principal result is established is in the nature of best possible and requires that, at small scales, the mean oscillations of the unit normal to $\partialΩ$ and of the coefficients of the differential operator ${\mathcal L}(x,D_x)$ are not too large.
We establish $C^{σ+α}$ interior estimates for concave nonlocal fully nonlinear equations of order $σ\in(0,2)$ with rough kernels. Namely, we prove that if $u\in C^α(\mathbb R^n)$ solves in $B_1$ a concave translation invariant equation with kernels in $\mathcal L_0(σ)$, then $u$ belongs to $C^{σ+α}(\overline{ B_{1/2}})$, with an estimate. More generally, our results allow the equation to depend on $x$ in a $C^α$ fashion. Our method of proof combines a Liouville theorem and a blow-up (compactness) procedure. Due to its flexibility, the same method can be useful in different regularity proofs fo…
We obtain $L^p(L^q)$ maximal regularity estimates for time dependent second order elliptic operators in divergence form with rough dependencies in the spatial variables.
In this paper we study boundary value problems for higher order elliptic differential operators in divergence form. We establish well posedness for problems with boundary data in Besov spaces $\dot B^{p,p}_s$, $p\leq 1$, given well posedness for appropriate values of $s$ and $p>1$. We work with smoothness parameter $s$ between $0$ and $1$; this allows us to consider inhomogeneous differential equations. Combined with results of Maz'ya, I. Mitrea, M. Mitrea, and Shaposhnikova, this allows us to establish new well posedness results for higher order operators whose coefficients are in or close to…
In this paper we study boundary value problems for higher order elliptic differential operators in divergence form. We consider the two closely related topics of inhomogeneous problems and problems with boundary data in fractional smoothness spaces. We establish $L^\infty$ perturbative results concerning well posedness of inhomogeneous problems with boundary data in fractional smoothness spaces. Combined with earlier known results, this allows us to establish new well posedness results for second order operators whose coefficients are close to being real and t-independent and for fourth-order …
The paper makes use of recent results in the theory of Banach lattices and positive operators to deal with abstract semilinear equations. The aim is to work with minimal or no regularity conditions on the boundary of the domains, where the usual arguments based on maximum principles do not apply. A key result is an application of Kato's inequality to prove a comparison theorem for eigenfunctions that only requires interior regularity and avoids the use of the Hopf boundary maximum principle. We demonstrate the theory on an abstract degenerate logistic equation by proving the existence, uniquen…
We study the Cauchy problem for the half Ginzburg-Landau-Kuramoto (hGLK) equation with the second order elliptic operator having rough coefficients and potential type perturbation. The blow-up of solutions for hGLK equation with non-positive nonlinearity is shown by an ODE argument. The key tools in the proof are appropriate commutator estimates and the essential self-adjointness of the symmetric uniformly elliptic operator with rough metric and potential type perturbation.
In this paper we establish existence of smooth positive solutions for a singular quasilinear elliptic system involving gradient terms. The approach combines sub-supersolutions method and Schauder's fixed point theorem.
In this paper, we prove existence and regularity of positive solutions for singular quasilinear elliptic systems involving gradient terms. Our approach is based on comparison properties, a priori estimates and Schauder's fixed point theorem.
Given a domain above a Lipschitz graph, we establish solvability results for strongly elliptic second-order systems in divergence-form, allowed to have lower-order (drift) terms, with $L^p$-boundary data for $p$ near $2$ (more precisely, in an interval of the form $\big(2-\varepsilon,\frac{2(n-1)}{n-2}+\varepsilon\big)$ for some small $\varepsilon>0$). The main novel aspect of our result is that the coefficients of the operator do not have to be constant, or have very high regularity, instead they will satisfy a natural Carleson condition that has appeared first in the scalar case. A significa…
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 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 study existence and Lorentz regularity of distributional solutions to elliptic equations with either a convection or a drift first order term. The presence of such a term makes the problem not coercive. The main tools are pointwise estimates of the rearrangements of both the solution and its gradient.
We show that the linear span of the set of scalar products of gradients of harmonic functions on a bounded smooth domain $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ which vanish on a closed proper subset of the boundary is dense in $L^1(Ω)$. We apply this density result to solve some partial data inverse boundary problems for a class of semilinear elliptic PDE with quadratic gradient terms.
We study nonexistence and existence of nontrivial positive solutions to the following semilinear elliptic inequality involving gradient terms \[ Δu+u^p\left|\nabla u\right|^q\leq0, \] on weighted graphs, where $(p,q)\in\mathbb{R}^2$. We give a complete classification of $(p,q)$ under which sharp volume growth assumptions are established.
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 establish a gradient estimate for a very weak solution to a quasilinear elliptic equation with a nonstandard growth condition, which is a natural generalization of the $p$-Laplace equation. We investigate the maximum extent for the gradient estimate to hold without imposing any regularity assumption on the nonlinearity other than basic structure assumptions. Our results also include a higher integrability result of the gradient and the existence for the very weak solutions to such nonlinear problems.
Gradient boundedness up to the boundary for solutions to Dirichlet and Neumann problems for elliptic systems with Uhlenbeck type structure is established. Nonlinearities of possibly non-polynomial type are allowed, and minimal regularity on the data and on the boundary of the domain is assumed. The case of arbitrary bounded convex domains is also included.
We obtain a local estimate for the gradient of solutions to a second-order elliptic equation in divergence form with bounded measurable coefficients that are square-Dini continuous at the single point x=0. In particular, we treat the case of solutions that are not Lipschitz continuous at x=0. We show that our estimate is sharp.
We establish the Caccioppoli inequality, a reverse Hölder inequality in the spirit of the classic estimate of Meyers, and construct the fundamental solution for linear elliptic differential equations of order $2m$ with certain lower order terms.
We show the sharp global well posedness for the Cauchy problem for the cubic (quartic) non-elliptic derivative Schrödinger equations with small rough data in modulation spaces $M^s_{2,1}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ for $n\ge 3$ ($n= 2$). In 2D cubic case, using the Gabor frame, we get some time-global dispersive estimates for the Schrödinger semi-group in anisotropic Lebesgue spaces, which include a time-global maximal function estimate in the space $L^2_{x_1}L^\infty_{x_2,t}$. By resorting to the smooth effect estimate together with the dispersive estimates in anisotropic Lebesgue spaces, we show that the…
In this thesis, a unified approach to prove the boundedness of gradients of solutions to degenerate and singular elliptic and parabolic phi-Laplacian systems is presented. At first, a Cacciopoli-type energy inequality with an additional function f which can be chosen freely is proven. Then, Di Giorgi's method is applied using level sets which will lead to L-infinity-estimates on the gradient of the weak solution.
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 show that the new result on Hölder continuity of solutions to a class of nondiagonal elliptic systems with $p$-growth in [2] can be used to improve the $L^q$ theory for such systems.
We prove global Sobolev regularity and pointwise upper bounds for the gradient of transition densities associated with second order differential operators in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with unbounded diffusion, drift and potential terms.
We consider a function which is a viscosity solution of a uniformly elliptic equation only at those points where the gradient is large. We prove that the H{ö}lder estimates and the Harnack inequality, as in the theory of Krylov and Safonov, apply to these functions.
We study boundary gradient estimates for second-order divergence type parabolic and elliptic systems in $C^{1,α}$ domains. The coefficients and data are assumed to be Hölder in the time variable and all but one spatial variables. This type of systems arises from the problems of linearly elastic laminates and composite materials.
We derive local boundedness estimates for weak solutions of a large class of second order quasilinear equations. The structural assumptions imposed on an equation in the class allow vanishing of the quadratic form associated with its principal part and require no smoothness of its coefficients. The class includes second order linear elliptic equations as studied by D. Gilbarg and N. S. Trudinger [1998] and second order subelliptic linear equations as studied by E. Sawyer and R. L. Wheeden [2006 and 2010]. Our results also extend ones obtained by J. Serrin [1964] concerning local boundedness of…
We study quasilinear elliptic double obstacle problems with a variable exponent growth when the right-hand side is a measure. A global Calderón-Zygmund estimate for the gradient of an approximable solution is obtained in terms of the associated double obstacles and a given measure, identifying minimal requirements for the regularity estimate.
We discuss, by topological methods, the solvability of systems of second-order elliptic differential equations subject to functional boundary conditions under the presence of gradient terms in the nonlinearities. We prove the existence of non-negative solutions and provide a non-existence result. We present some examples to illustrate the applicability of the existence and non-existence results.
We discuss counterexamples to the validity of the weak Maximum Principle for linear elliptic systems with zero and first order couplings and prove, through a suitable reduction to a nonlinear scalar equation, a quite general result showing that some algebraic condition on the structure of gradient couplings and a cooperativity condition on the matrix of zero order couplings guarantee the existence of invariant cones in the sense of Weinberger [21].
We consider a nonlinear Neumann elliptic inclusion with a source (reaction term) consisting of a convex subdifferential plus a multivalued term depending on the gradient. The convex subdifferential incorporates in our framework problems with unilateral constraints (variational inequalities). Using topological methods and the Moreau-Yosida approximations of the subdifferential term, we establish the existence of a smooth solution.
In this paper, we prove $L^q$-estimates for gradients of solutions to singular quasilinear elliptic equations with measure data $$-\operatorname{div}(A(x,\nabla u))=μ,$$ in a bounded domain $Ω\subset\mathbb{R}^{N}$, where $A(x,\nabla u)\nabla u \asymp |\nabla u|^p$, $p\in (1,2-\frac{1}{n}]$ and $μ$ is a Radon measure in $Ω$
We show that a class of divergence-form elliptic problems with quadratic growth in the gradient and non-coercive zero order terms are solvable, under essentially optimal hypotheses on the coefficients in the equation. In addition, we prove that the solutions are in general not unique. The case where the zero order term has the opposite sign was already intensively studied and the uniqueness is the rule.
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 pointwise gradient bounds for solutions of (possibly non-uniformly) elliptic partial differential equations in the entire Euclidean space. The operator taken into account is very general and comprises also the singular and degenerate nonlinear case with non-standard growth conditions. The sourcing term is also allowed to have a very general form, depending on the space variables, on the solution itself, on its gradient, and possibly on higher order derivatives if additional structural conditions are satisfied.
This paper establishes pointwise estimates up to boundary for the gradient of weak solutions to a class of very singular quasilinear elliptic equations with mixed data: \begin{cases} -\operatorname{div}(A(x,D u))=g-\operatorname{div} f \quad & \mathrm{in} \quad Ω\\ u= 0 \quad & \text{on} \ \partial Ω, \end{cases} where $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ is sufficiently flat in the sense of Reifenberg.
A periodic connection is constructed for a double well potential defined in the plane. This solution violates Modica's estimate as well as the corresponding Liouville Theorem for general phase transition potentials. Gradient estimates are also established for several kinds of elliptic systems. They allow us to prove in some particular cases the Liouville Theorem. Finally, we give an alternative form of the stress-energy tensor for solutions defined in planar domains. As an application, we deduce a (strong) monotonicity formula.
In this paper,we consider the solutions of the non-homogeneous elliptic obstacle problems with Orlicz growth involving measure data. We first establish the pointwise estimates of the approximable solutions to these problems via fractional maximal operators. As a result, we obtain pointwise and oscillation estimates for the gradients of solutions by the non-linear Wolff potentials, and these yield results on $C^{1,α}$-regularity of solutions.
We extend the Caffarelli-Świech-Winter $C^{1,α}$ regularity estimates to $L^p$-viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations in nondivergence form with superlinear growth in the gradient and unbounded coefficients. As an application, in addition to the usual $W^{2,p}$ results, we prove the existence of positive eigenvalues for proper operators with nonnegative unbounded weight, in particular for Pucci's operators with unbounded coefficients.
This note is a continuation of the work \cite{CaoXiangYan2014}. We study the following quasilinear elliptic equations \[ -Δ_{p}u-\fracμ{|x|^{p}}|u|^{p-2}u=Q(x)|u|^{\frac{Np}{N-p}-2}u,\quad\, x\in\mathbb{R}^{N}, \] where $1<p<N,0\leqμ<\left((N-p)/p\right)^{p}$ and $Q\in L^{\infty}(\R^{N})$. Optimal asymptotic estimates on the gradient of solutions are obtained both at the origin and at the infinity.
We obtain Dini type estimates for a class of concave fully nonlinear nonlocal elliptic equations of order $σ\in (0,2)$ with rough and non-symmetric kernels. The proof is based on a novel application of Campanato's approach and a refined $C^{σ+α}$ estimate in [8].
This paper is devoted to establishing the pointwise upper and lower bounds estimates of the gradient of the solutions to a class of general elliptic systems with Hölder continuous coefficients in a narrow region where the upper and lower boundaries is $C^{1,γ},$ $0<γ<1$, weaker than the previous $C^{2,γ}$ assumption. These estimates play a key role in the damage analysis of composite materials. From our results, the damage may initiate from the narrowest place.
We are concerned with fully nonlinear possibly degenerate elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) with superlinear terms with respect to $Du$. We prove several comparison principles among viscosity solutions which may be unbounded under some polynomial-type growth conditions. Our main result applies to PDEs with convex superlinear terms but we also obtain some results in nonconvex cases. Applications to monotone systems of PDEs are given.
In this paper, we prove global gradient estimates for solutions to linear elliptic and parabolic equations. For a sufficiently smooth bounded convex domain $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^N$, we show that a solution $ϕ\in W_0^{1,\infty}(Ω)$ to an appropriate elliptic equation $\mathcal{L} ϕ= F$, with $F \in L^{\infty}(Ω;\mathbb{R})$, satisfies $|\nabla ϕ|_{\infty} \leq C |F|_{\infty}$, with a positive constant $C = \exp(C(\mathcal{L})\text{diam}(Ω))$. We also obtain similiar estimates in the parabolic setting. The proof of these exponential bounds relies on global gradient estimates inspired by a series …
We prove in this paper the global Lorentz estimate in term of fractional-maximal function for gradient of weak solutions to a class of p-Laplace elliptic equations containing a non-negative Schrödinger potential which belongs to reverse Hölder classes. In particular, this class of p-Laplace operator includes both degenerate and non-degenerate cases. The interesting idea is to use an efficient approach based on the level-set inequality related to the distribution function in harmonic analysis.
In this paper we consider second order fully nonlinear operators with an additive superlinear gradient term. Like in the pioneering paper of Brezis for the semilinear case, we obtain the existence of entire viscosity solutions, defined in all the space, without assuming global bounds. A uniqueness result is also obtained for special gradient terms, subject to a convexity/concavity type assumption where superlinearity is essential and has to be handled in a different way from the linear case.
