We investigate the regularity of the free boundary for the Signorini problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. It is known that regular points are $(n-1)$-dimensional and $C^\infty$. However, even for $C^\infty$ obstacles $φ$, the set of non-regular (or degenerate) points could be very large, e.g. with infinite $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$ measure.
The only two assumptions under which a nice structure result for degenerate points has been established are: when $φ$ is analytic, and when $Δφ< 0$. However, even in these cases, the set of degenerate points is in general $(n-1)$-dimensional (as large as the set of regular points).
In this work, we show for the first time that, "usually", the set of degenerate points is small. Namely, we prove that, given any $C^\infty$ obstacle, for "almost every" solution the non-regular part of the free boundary is at most $(n-2)$-dimensional. This is the first result in this direction for the Signorini problem.
Furthermore, we prove analogous results for the obstacle problem for the fractional Laplacian $(-Δ)^s$, and for the parabolic Signorini problem. In the parabolic Signorini problem, our main result establishes that the non-regular part of the free boundary is $(n-1-α_\circ)$-dimensional for almost all times $t$, for some $α_\circ > 0$.
Finally, we construct some new examples of free boundaries with degenerate points.
We give a comprehensive treatment of the parabolic Signorini problem based on a generalization of Almgren's monotonicity of the frequency. This includes the proof of the optimal regularity of solutions, classification of free boundary points, the regularity of the regular set and the structure of the singular set.
In this note we discuss the (higher) regularity properties of the Signorini problem for the homogeneous, isotropic Lamé system. Relying on an observation by Schumann \cite{Schumann1}, we reduce the question of the solution's and the free boundary regularity for the homogeneous, isotropic Lamé system to the corresponding regularity properties of the obstacle problem for the half-Laplacian.
We prove under general assumptions that solutions of the thin obstacle or Signorini problem in any space dimension achieve the optimal regularity $C^{1,1/2}$. This improves the known optimal regularity results by allowing the thin obstacle to be defined in an arbitrary $C^{1,β}$ hypersurface, $β>1/2$, additionally, our proof covers any linear elliptic operator in divergence form with smooth coefficients. The main ingredients of the proof are a version of Almgren's monotonicity formula and the optimal regularity of global solutions.
In this paper we establish the $C^{1,β}$ regularity of the regular part of the free boundary in the Signorini problem for elliptic operators with variable Lipschitz coefficients. This work is a continuation of the recent paper [GSVG14], where two of us established the interior optimal regularity of the solution. Two of the central results of the present work are a new monotonicity formula and a new epiperimetric inequality.
In this paper we study the higher regularity of the free boundary for the elliptic Signorini problem. By using a partial hodograph-Legendre transformation we show that the regular part of the free boundary is real analytic. The first complication in the study is the invertibility of the hodograph transform (which is only $C^{0,1/2}$) which can be overcome by studying the precise asymptotic behavior of the solutions near regular free boundary points. The second and main complication in the study is that the equation satisfied by the Legendre transform is degenerate. However, the equation has a …
In this note, we use an epiperimetric inequality approach to study the regularity of the free boundary for the parabolic Signorini problem. We show that if the "vanishing order" of a solution at a free boundary point is close to $3/2$ or an even integer, then the solution is asymptotically homogeneous. Furthermore, one can derive a convergence rate estimate towards the asymptotic homogeneous solution. As a consequence, we obtain the regularity of the regular free boundary as well as the frequency gap.
We will show optimal regularity for minimizers of the Signorini problem for the Lame system. In particular if $\u=(u^1,u^2,u^3)\in W^{1,2}(B_1^+:\R^3)$ minimizes $$ J(\u)=\int_{B_1^+}|\nabla \u+\nabla^\bot \u|^2+λ÷(\u)^2 $$ in the convex set $$ K=\big\{\u=(u^1,u^2,u^3)\in W^{1,2}(B_1^+:\R^3);\; u^3\ge 0 \textrm{on}Π, $$ $$ \u=f\in C^\infty(\partial B_1) \textrm{on}(\partial B_1)^+ \big\}, $$ where $λ\ge 0$ say. Then $\u\in C^{1,1/2}(B_{1/2}^+)$. Moreover the free boundary, given by $$ Γ_\u=\partial \{x;\;u^3(x)=0,\; x_3=0\}\cap B_{1}, $$ will be a $C^{1,α}$ graph close to points where $\u$ is …
We show that the quotient of two caloric functions which vanish on a portion of an $H^{k+ α}$ regular slit is $H^{k+ α}$ at the slit, for $k \geq 2$. In the case $k=1$, we show that the quotient is in $H^{1+α}$ if the slit is assumed to be space-time $C^{1, α}$ regular. This can be thought of as a parabolic analogue of a recent important result in [DSS14a], whose ideas inspired us. As an application, we show that the free boundary near a regular point of the parabolic thin obstacle problem studied in [DGPT] with zero obstacle is $C^{\infty}$ regular in space and time.
We study the regularity of solutions to the fully nonlinear thin obstacle problem. We establish local $C^{1,α}$ estimates on each side of the smooth obstacle, for some small $α> 0$. Our results extend those of Milakis-Silvestre in two ways: first, we do not assume solutions nor operators to be symmetric, and second, our estimates are local, in the sense that do not rely on the boundary data. As a consequence, we prove $C^{1,α}$ regularity even when the problem is posed in general Lipschitz domains.
The Signorini problem for the Laplace operator is considered in a general polygonal domain. It is proved that the coincidence set consists of a finite number of boundary parts plus isolated points. The regularity of the solution is described. In particular, we show that the leading singularity is in general $r_i^{π/(2α_i)}$ at transition points of Signorini to Dirichlet or Neumann conditions but $r_i^{π/α_i}$ at kinks of the Signorini boundary, with $α_i$ being the internal angle of the domain at these critical points.
We study solutions to a variational equation that models heat control on the boundary. This problem can be thought of as the two phase parabolic Signorini problem. We show that when the solution has a sign on the boundary, the study of the free boundary can be reduced to the study of the free boundary in the parabolic Signorini problem. We show that locally there is always a sign on the boundary; therefore, the optimal regularity of the solutions as well as the study of the free boundary is reduced to the one phase parabolic Signorini problem.
In this paper, we study almost minimizers for the parabolic thin obstacle (or Signorini) problem with zero obstacle. We establish their $H^{σ,σ/2}$-regularity for every $0<σ<1$, as well as $H^{β,β/2}$-regularity of their spatial gradients on the either side of the thin space for some $0<β<1$. A similar result is also obtained for almost minimizers for the Signorini problem with variable Hölder coefficients.
Variational inequalities with thin obstacles and Signorini-type boundary conditions are classical problems in the calculus of variations, arising in numerous applications. In the linear case many refined results are known, while in the nonlinear setting our understanding is still at a preliminary stage. In this paper we prove $C^1$ regularity for the solutions to a general class of quasi-linear variational inequalities with thin obstacles and $C^{1, α}$ regularity for variational inequalities under Signorini-type conditions on the boundary of a domain.
We study the Signorini problem near a fixed boundary, where the solution is "clamped down" or "glued." We show that in general the solutions are at least $C^{1/2}$ regular and that this regularity is sharp. We prove that near the actual points of contact of the free boundary with the fixed one the blowup solutions must have homogeneity $κ\geq 3/2$, while at the non-contact points the homogeneity must take one of the values: $1/2, 3/2, \ldots, m-1/2, \ldots$.
We consider the Bernoulli one-phase free boundary problem in a domain $Ω$ and show that the free boundary $F$ is $C^{1,1/2}$ regular in a neighborhood of the fixed boundary $\partial Ω$. We achieve this by relating the behavior of $F$ near $\partial Ω$ to a Signorini-type obstacle problem.
We provide a higher order boundary Harnack inequality for harmonic functions in slit domains. As a corollary we obtain the $C^\infty$ regularity of the free boundary in the Signorini problem near non-degenerate points.
In this work we present a general introduction to the Signorini problem (or thin obstacle problem). It is a self-contained survey that aims to cover the main currently known results regarding the thin obstacle problem. We present the theory with some proofs: from the optimal regularity of solutions and classification of free boundary points, to more recent results on the non-regular part of the free boundary and generic regularity.
We consider Anzellotti-type almost minimizers for the thin obstacle (or Signorini) problem with zero thin obstacle and establish their $C^{1,β}$ regularity on the either side of the thin manifold, the optimal growth away from the free boundary, the $C^{1,γ}$ regularity of the regular part of the free boundary, as well as a structural theorem for the singular set. The analysis of the free boundary is based on a successful adaptation of energy methods such as a one-parameter family of Weiss-type monotonicity formulas, Almgren-type frequency formula, and the epiperimetric and logarithmic epiperim…
We study the regularity of the free boundary in the obstacle problem for the fractional Laplacian under the assumption that the obstacle $φ$ satisfies $Δφ\leq 0$ near the contact region. Our main result establishes that the free boundary consists of a set of regular points, which is known to be a $(n-1)$-dimensional $C^{1,α}$ manifold by the results in \cite{CSS}, and a set of singular points, which we prove to be contained in a union of $k$-dimensional $C^1$-submanifold, $k=0,\ldots,n-1$. Such a complete result on the structure of the free boundary was known only in the case of the classical …
We prove forward and backward parabolic boundary Harnack principles for nonnegative solutions of the heat equation in the complements of thin parabolic Lipschitz sets given as subgraphs $E=\{(x,t): x_{n-1}\leq f(x'',t),x_n=0\}\subset \mathbb{R}^{n-1}\times\mathbb{R} $ for parabolically Lipschitz functions $f$ on $\mathbb{R}^{n-2}\times\mathbb{R}$. We are motivated by applications to parabolic free boundary problems with thin (i.e co-dimension two) free boundaries. In particular, at the end of the paper we show how to prove the spatial $C^{1,α}$ regularity of the free boundary in the parabolic …
In this paper we study the local regularity of almost minimizers of the functional \begin{equation*} J(u)=\int_Ω|\nabla u(x)|^2 +q^2_+(x)χ_{\{u>0\}}(x) +q^2_-(x)χ_{\{u<0\}}(x) \end{equation*} where $q_\pm \in L^\infty(Ω)$. Almost minimizers do not satisfy a PDE or a monotonicity formula like minimizers do (see \cite{AC}, \cite{ACF}, \cite{CJK}, \cite{W}). Nevertheless we succeed in proving that they are locally Lipschitz, which is the optimal regularity for minimizers.
In this note, we study the random data problem for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in Euclidean space with arbitrary regularity, using the randomization introduced in \cite{Shen-Soffer-Wu-2021-1}.
For any subcritical index of regularity $s>3/2$, we prove the almost global well posedness for the 2-dimensional semilinear wave equation with the cubic nonlinearity in the derivatives, when the initial data are small in the Sobolev space $H^s\times H^{s-1}$ with certain angular regularity. The main new ingredient in the proof is an endpoint version of the generalized Strichartz estimates in the space $L^2_t L_{|x|}^\infty L^2_θ([0,T]\times \R^2)$. In the last section, we also consider the general semilinear wave equations with the spatial dimension $n\ge 2$ and the order of nonlinearity $p\ge…
In this article, we establish several almost critical regularity conditions such that the weak solutions of the 3D Navier-Stokes equations become regular, based on one component of the solutions, say $u_3$ and $\partial_3u_3$.
We prove that, given~$p>\max\left\{\frac{2n}{n+2},1\right\}$, the nonnegative almost minimizers of the nonlinear free boundary functional $$ J_p(u,Ω):=\int_Ω\Big( |\nabla u(x)|^p+χ_{\{u>0\}}(x)\Big)\,dx$$ are Lipschitz continuous.
Whether or not the solution to 2D resistive MHD equations is globally smooth remains open. This paper establishes the global regularity of solutions to the 2D almost resistive MHD equations, which require the dissipative operators $\mathcal{L}$ weaker than any power of the fractional Laplacian. The result is an improvement of the one of Fan et al. (Global Cauchy problem of 2D generalized MHD equations, Monatsh. Math., 175 (2014), pp. 127-131) which ask for $α>0, β=1$.
We study almost-minimizers of anisotropic surface energies defined by a Hölder continuous matrix of coefficients acting on the unit normal direction to the surface. In this generalization of the Plateau problem, we prove almost-minimizers are locally Hölder continuously differentiable at regular points and give dimension estimates for the size of the singular set. We work in the framework of sets of locally finite perimeter and our proof follows an excess-decay type argument.
In this paper, we study the defocusing energy-critical nonlinear Schrödinger equations $$ i\partial_t u + Δu = |u|^{\frac{4}{d-2}} u. $$ When $d=3,4$, we prove the almost sure scattering for the equations with non-radial data in $H_x^s$ for any $s\in\mathbb{R}$. In particular, our result does not rely on any spherical symmetry, size or regularity restrictions.
We prove the local Lipschitz continuity and the higher differentiability of local minimizers of integral functionals with non autonomous integrand which is degenerate convex with respect to the gradient variable. The main novelty here is that the results are obtained assuming that the coefficients have weak derivative in an almost critical Zygmund class and the datum f is assumed to belong to the same Zygmund class.
In the present paper, we generalize the theory of quantitative homogenization for second-order elliptic systems with rapidly oscillating coefficients in $APW^2(\mathbb{R}^d)$, which is the space of almost-periodic functions in the sense of H. Weyl. We obtain the large scale uniform boundary Lipschitz estimate, for both Dirichlet and Neumann problems in $C^{1,α}$ domains. We also obtain large scale uniform boundary Hölder estimates in $C^{1,α}$ domains and $L^2$ Rellich estimates in Lipschitz domains.
In this paper we obtain global well-posedness in low order Sobolev spaces of higher order KdV type equations with dissipation. The result is optimal in the sense that the flow-map is not twice continuously differentiable in rougher spaces. The solution is shown to be smooth for positive times.
In this paper we study the free boundary regularity for almost-minimizers of the functional \begin{equation*} J(u)=\int_{\mathcal O} |\nabla u(x)|^2 +q^2_+(x)χ_{\{u>0\}}(x) +q^2_-(x)χ_{\{u<0\}}(x)\ dx \end{equation*} where $q_\pm \in L^\infty(\mathcal O)$. Almost-minimizers satisfy a variational inequality but not a PDE or a monotonicity formula the way minimizers do (see [AC], [ACF], [CJK], [W]). Nevertheless we succeed in proving that, under a non-degeneracy assumption on $q_\pm$, the free boundary is uniformly rectifiable. Furthermore, when $q_-\equiv 0$, and $q_+$ is Hölder continuous we s…
In this paper we examine necessary conditions for an inhomogeneity to be non-scattering, or equivalently, by negation, sufficient conditions for it to be scattering. These conditions are formulated in terms of the regularity of the boundary of the inhomogeneity. We examine broad classes of incident waves in both two and three dimensions. Our analysis is greatly influenced by the analysis carried out by Williams [28] in order to establish that a domain, which does not possess the Pompeiu Property, has a real analytic boundary. That analysis, as well as ours, relies crucially on classical free b…
We consider the radial nonlinear Schrödinger equation $i\partial_tu +Δu = |u|^{p-1}u$ in dimension $d\geqslant 2$ for $p\in \left(1,1+\frac{4}{d}\right]$ and construct a natural Gaussian measure $μ_0$ which support is almost $L^2_{\text{rad}}$ and such that $μ_0$ - almost every initial data gives rise to a unique global solution. Furthermore, for $p>1+\frac{2}{d}$ and $d\in\{2, \dots, 10\}$ the solutions constructed scatters in a space which is almost $L^2$. This paper can be viewed as the higher dimensional counterpart of the work of Burq and Thomann, in the radial case.
Whether or not the classical solutions of the two-dimensional (2D) incompressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations with only Laplacian magnetic diffusion (without velocity dissipation) are globally well-posed is a difficult problem and remains completely open. In this paper, we establish the global regularity of solutions to the 2D incompressible MHD equations with almost Laplacian magnetic diffusion in the whole space. This result can be regarded as a further improvement and generalization of the previous works. Consequently, our result is more closer to the resolution of the global regul…
In this paper we consider a Cauchy problem on the self-dual relativistic non-abelian Chern-Simons-Higgs model, which is the system of equations of $\mathfrak{su}(n)\, (n \ge 2)$-valued matter field $ϕ$ and gauge field $A$. Based on the frequency localization as well as the null structure we show the local well-posedness in Sobolev space $H^{s+\frac12} \times H^s$ for $s>\frac14$. We also prove that the solution flow map $(ϕ(0), A(0)) \mapsto (ϕ(t), A(t))$ fails to be $C^2$ at the origin of $H^s \times H^σ$ when $σ< \frac14$ regardless of $s \in \mathbb R$. This means the regularity $H^s$, $s>\…
In this paper, we first establish a kind of weighted space-time $L^2$ estimate, which belongs to Keel-Smith-Sogge type estimates, for perturbed linear elastic wave equations. This estimate refines the corresponding one established by the second author [J. Differential Equations 263(2017), 1947--1965] and is proved by combining the methods in the former paper, the first author, Wang and Yokoyama's paper [Adv. Differential Equations 17 (2012), 267--306], and some new ingredients. Then together with some weighted Sobolev inequalities, this estimate is used to show a refined version of almost glob…
We are interested in the long time behavior of solutions of the nonlinear Schr{ö}dinger equation on the $d$-dimensional torus in low regularity, i.e. for small initial data in the Sobolev space $H^{s_0}(\mathbb T^d)$ with $s_0>d/2$. We prove that, even in this context of low regularity, the $H^s$-norms, $s\geq 0$, remain under control during times, $T_\varepsilon= \exp \big(-\frac{|\log\varepsilon|^2}{4\log|\log\varepsilon|} \big)$, exponential with respect to the initial size of the initial datum in $H^{s_0}$, $\|u(0)\|_{H^{s_0}}=\varepsilon$. For this, we add to the linear part of the equati…
We consider almost minimizers to the thin-one phase energy functional and we prove optimal regularity of the solution and partial regularity of the free boundary. We thus recover the theory for energy minimizers. Our methods are based on a noninfinitesimal notion of viscosity solutions.
In this paper, we show almost global existence of small solutions to the Cauchy problem for symmetric system of wave equations with quadratic (in 3D) or cubic (in 2D) nonlinear terms and multiple propagation speeds. To measure the size of initial data, we employ a weighted Sobolev norm whose regularity index is the smallest among all the admissible Sobolev norms of integer order. We must overcome the difficulty caused by the absence of the $H^1$-$L^p$ Klainerman-Sobolev type inequality, in order to obtain a required a priori bound in the low-order Sobolev norm. The introduction of good substit…
Let $u$ be a solution to the normalized p-harmonic obstacle problem with $p>2$. That is, $u\in W^{1,p}(B_1(0))$, $2<p<\infty$, $u\ge 0$ and $$ \d\left( |\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u\right)=χ_{\{u>0\}}\textrm{ in }B_1(0) $$ where $u(x)\ge 0$ and $χ_A$ is the characteristic function of the set $A$. Our main result is that for almost every free boundary point, with respect to the $(n-1)-$Hausdorff measure, there is a neighborhood where the free boundary is a $C^{1,β}-$graph. That is, for $\H^{n-1}-$a.e. point $x^0\in \partial \{u>0\}\cap B_1(0)$ there is an $r>0$ such that $B_r(x^0)\cap \partial \{u>0…
We consider almost minimizers to the one-phase energy functional and we prove their optimal Lipschitz regularity and partial regularity of their free boundary. These results were recently obtained by David and Toro, and David, Engelstein, and Toro. Our proofs provide a different method based on a non-infinitesimal notion of viscosity solutions.
