For a given finite subset $S$ of a compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ whose Schouten curvature tensor belongs to a given cone, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence and uniqueness of a conformal metric on $M \setminus S$ such that each point of $S$ corresponds to an asymptotically flat end and that the Schouten tensor of the conformal metric belongs to the boundary of the given cone. As a by-product, we define a purely local notion of Ricci lower bounds for continuous metrics which are conformal to smooth metrics and prove a corresponding volume comparison theorem.
We define a new formal Riemannian metric on a conformal classes of four-manifolds in the context of the $σ_2$-Yamabe problem. Exploiting this new variational structure we show that solutions are unique unless the manifold is conformally equivalent to the round sphere.
We report on some aspects and recent progress in certain problems in the sub-Riemannian CR and quaternionic contact (QC) geometries. The focus are the corresponding Yamabe problems on the round spheres, the Lichnerowicz-Obata first eigenvalue estimates, and the relation between these two problems. A motivation from the Riemannian case highlights new and old ideas which are then developed in the settings of Iwasawa sub-Riemannian geometries.
The Gursky-Streets equation are introduced as the geodesic equation of a metric structure in conformal geometry. This geometric structure has played a substantial role in the proof of uniqueness of $σ_2$ Yamabe problem in dimension four. In this paper we solve the Gursky-Streets equations with uniform $C^{1, 1}$ estimates for $2k\leq n$. An important new ingredient is to show the concavity of the operator which holds for all $k\leq n$. Our proof of the concavity heavily relies on Garding's theory of hyperbolic polynomials and results from the theory of real roots for (interlacing) polynomials.…
In the first part of this thesis, we study the Yamabe problem with singularities, that we can announce as follow: Given a compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$, find a constant scalar curvature metric, conformal to $g$, when $g$ has not necessarily the usual regularity (it can be $C^1$). To solve this problem, we start the study of the Yamabe type equations. We show that all the known properties in the smooth case are still valid. Under some assumptions, we prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions. The second part is dedicated to the Hebey-Vaugon conjecture, stated in their paper about th…
This article presents an analysis of the normalized Yamabe flow starting at and preserving a class of compact Riemannian manifolds with incomplete edge singularities and negative Yamabe invariant. Our main results include uniqueness, long-time existence and convergence of the edge Yamabe flow starting at a metric with everywhere negative scalar curvature. Our methods include novel maximum principle results on the singular edge space without using barrier functions. Moreover, our uniform bounds on solutions are established by a new ansatz without in any way using or redeveloping Krylov-Safonov …
We discuss the constant $σ_{2}$ problem for conic 4-spheres. Based on earlier works of Chang-Han-Yang and Han-Li-Teixeira, we are able to find a necessary condition for the existence problem. In particular, when the condition is sharp, we have the uniqueness result similar to that of Troyanov in dimension 2. It indicates that the boundary of the moduli of all conic 4-spheres with constant $σ_{2}$ metrics consists of conic spheres with 2 conic points and rotational symmetry.
In a conformal class of metrics with positive Yamabe invariant, we derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of metrics with positive Q curvature. The condition is conformally invariant. We also prove some inequalities between the Green's functions of the conformal Laplacian operator and the Paneitz operator.
Let $(M,g)$ be a compact connected spin manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$ whose Yamabe invariant is positive. We assume that $(M,g)$ is locally conformally flat or that $n \in \{3,4,5\}$. According to a positive mass theorem of Witten, the constant term in the asymptotic development of the Green's function of the conformal Laplacian is positive if $(M,g)$ is not conformally equivalent to the sphere. In the present article, we will give a proof for this fact which is considerably shorter than previous proofs. Our proof is a modification of Witten's argument, but no analysis on asymtotically flat …
We complete the classification (started by Bray and the second author) of all closed 3-manifolds with Yamabe invariant greater than that of $\RP^3$, by showing that such manifolds are either $S^3$ or finite connected sums $# m(S^2 \times S^1) # n(S^2 \tilde{\times} S^1)$ for $m + n \geq 1$, where $S^2 \tilde{\times} S^1$ is the nonorientable $S^2$-bundle over $S^1$. A key ingredient is Aubin's Lemma, which says that if the Yamabe constant is positive, then it is strictly less than the Yamabe constant of any of its non-trivial finite conformal coverings. This lemma, combined with inverse mean c…
Green functions play an important role in conformal geometry. In this paper, we explain how to compute explicitly the logarithmic singularities of the Green functions of the conformal powers of the Laplacian. These operators include the Yamabe and Paneitz operators, as well as the conformal fractional powers of the Laplacian arising from scattering theory for Poincaré-Einstein metrics. The results are formulated in terms of Weyl conformal invariants arising from the ambient metric of Fefferman-Graham. As applications we obtain "Green function" characterizations of locally conformally flat mani…
This paper consists of two parts. In the first part we show that in odd dimension, as well as in even dimension below the critical weight (i.e. half the dimension), the logarithmic singularities of Schwartz kernels and Green kernels of conformal invariant pseudodifferential operators are linear combinations of Weyl conformal invariants, i.e., of local conformal invariants arising from complete tensorial contractions of the covariant derivatives of the Lorentz ambient metric of Fefferman-Graham. In even dimension and above the critical weight exceptional local conformal invariants may further c…
Gursky-Streets introduced a formal Riemannian metric on the space of conformal metrics in a fixed conformal class of a compact Riemannian four-manifold in the context of the $σ_2$-Yamabe problem. The geodesic equation of Gursky-Streets' metric is a fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equation and Gursky-Streets have proved uniform $C^{0, 1}$ regularity for a perturbed equation. Gursky-Streets apply the results and parabolic smoothing of Guan-Wang flow to show that the solution of $σ_2$-Yamabe problem is unique. A key ingredient is the convexity of Chang-Yang's $\cF$-functional along the (smoot…
The conformal method has been effective for parametrizing solutions to the Einstein constraint equations on closed 3-manifolds. However, it is still not well-understood; for example, existence of solutions to the conformal equations for zero or negative Yamabe metrics is still unknown without the so-called ``CMC'' or ``near-CMC'' assumptions. The first existence results without such assumptions, termed the ``far-from-CMC'' case, were obtained by Holst, Nagy, and Tsogtgerel in 2008 for positive Yamabe metrics. However, their results are based on topological arguments, and as a result solution u…
We propose analogues of Green's and Picone's identities for the $p$-sub-Laplacian on stratified Lie groups. In particular, these imply a generalised Díaz-Saá inequality for the $p$-sub-Laplacian on stratified Lie groups. Using these we derive a comparison principle and uniqueness of a positive solution to nonlinear hypoelliptic equations on general stratified Lie groups extending to the setting of the general stratified Lie groups previously known results on Euclidean and Heisenberg groups.
We consider the problem of constructing solutions to the fractional Yamabe problem that are singular at a given smooth sub-manifold, and we establish the classical gluing method of Mazzeo and Pacard for the scalar curvature in the fractional setting. This proof is based on the analysis of the model linearized operator, which amounts to the study of an ODE, and thus our main contribution here is the development of new methods coming from conformal geometry and scattering theory for the study of non-local ODEs. No traditional phase-plane analysis is available here. Instead, first, we provide a r…
For many wave propagation problems with random sources it has been demonstrated that cross correlations of wave fields are proportional to the imaginary part of the Green function of the underlying wave equation. This leads to the inverse problem to recover coefficients of a wave equation from the imaginary part of the Green function on some measurement manifold. In this paper we prove, in particular, local uniqueness results for the Schr{ö}dinger equation with one frequency and for the acoustic wave equation with unknown density and sound speed and two frequencies. As the main tool of our ana…
We study ($p$-harmonic) singular functions, defined by means of upper gradients, in bounded domains in metric measure spaces. It is shown that singular functions exist if and only if the complement of the domain has positive capacity, and that they satisfy very precise capacitary identities for superlevel sets. Suitably normalized singular functions are called Green functions. Uniqueness of Green functions is largely an open problem beyond unweighted $\mathbf{R}^n$, but we show that all Green functions (in a given domain and with the same singularity) are comparable. As a consequence, for $p$-…
We give background which shows the connection between the mean value theorem and the obstacle problem, and then we prove that a set is a mean value set for an elliptic operator of the form $Lu := \partial_i (a^{ij}(x) \partial_j u(x))$ if and only if it arises as the noncontact set of an obstacle problem involving the Green's function of the operator.
Assume that $M$ is a CR compact manifold without boundary and CR Yamabe invariant $\mathcal{Y}(M)$ is positive. Here, we devote to study a class of sharp Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality as follows \begin{equation*} \Bigl| \int_M\int_M [G_ξ^θ(η)]^{\frac{Q-α}{Q-2}} f(ξ) g(η) dV_θ(ξ) dV_θ(η) \Bigr| \leq \mathcal{Y}_α(M) \|f\|_{L^{\frac{2Q}{Q+α}}(M)} \|g\|_{L^{\frac{2Q}{Q+α}}(M)}, \end{equation*} where $G_ξ^θ(η)$ is the Green function of CR conformal Laplacian $\mathcal{L_θ}=b_nΔ_b+R$, $\mathcal{Y}_α(M)$ is sharp constant, $Δ_b$ is Sublaplacian and $R$ is Tanaka-Webster scalar curvature. For t…
Let $g_0$ be a smooth Riemannian metric on a closed manifold $M^n$ of dimension $n\geq 3$. We study the existence of a smooth metric $g$ conformal to $g_0$ whose Schouten tensor $A_g$ satisfies the differential inclusion $λ(g^{-1}A_g)\inΓ$ on $M^n$, where $Γ\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ is a cone satisfying standard assumptions. Inclusions of this type are often assumed in the existence theory for fully nonlinear elliptic equations in conformal geometry. We assume the existence of a continuous metric $g_1$ conformal to $g_0$ satisfying $λ(g_1^{-1}A_{g_1})\in\bar{Γ'}$ in the viscosity sense on $M^n$, to…
Using the Gegenbauer polynomials and the zonal harmonics functions we give some representation formula of the Green function in the annulus. We apply this result to prove some uniqueness results for some nonlinear elliptic problems.
We consider in this paper the nonlinear elliptic equation with Neumann boundary condition \begin{align*} \begin{cases} Δu=a|u|^{m-1}u\,\,\mbox{ in }\,\,\rnp\\ \dfrac{\partial u}{\partial t}=b|u|^{η-1}u+f\,\,\mbox{ on }\,\,\partial\rnp. \end{cases} \end{align*} For $a,b\neq 0$, $m>\frac{n+1}{n-1}$, $(n>1)$, $η=\frac{m+1}{2}$ and small data $f\in L^{\frac{nq}{n+1},\infty}(\partial\rnp)$, $q=\frac{(n+1)(m-1)}{m+1}$ we prove that the problem is solvable. More precisely, we establish existence, uniqueness and continuous dependence of solutions on the boundary data $f$ in the function space $\X^{q}_…
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.
The solvability in Sobolev spaces with special mixed norms is proved for nondivergence form second order parabolic equations. The leading coefficients are assumed to be measurable in the time variable and two coordinates of space variables, and be almost in VMO (vanishing mean oscillation) with respect to the other coordinates. This solvability result implies the weak uniqueness of solutions of the corresponding stochastic Itô equations in the class of "good" solutions (which is nonempty). This also implies uniqueness of a Green's function in the class of "good" ones (which is always nonempty)…
We consider in the plane the problem of reconstructing a domain from the normal derivative of its Green's function with pole at a fixed point in the domain. By means of the theory of conformal mappings, we obtain existence, uniqueness, (non-spherical) symmetry results, and a formula relating the curvature of the boundary of the domain to the normal derivative of its Green's function.
In this paper, we establish existence, uniqueness, and scale-invariant estimates for fundamental solutions of non-homogeneous second order elliptic systems with bounded measurable coefficients in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and for the corresponding Green functions in arbitrary open sets. We impose certain non-homogeneous versions of de Giorgi-Nash-Moser bounds on the weak solutions and investigate in detail the assumptions on the lower order terms sufficient to guarantee such conditions.
We study Green functions for stationary Stokes systems satisfying the conormal derivative boundary condition. We establish existence, uniqueness, and various estimates for the Green function under the assumption that weak solutions of the Stokes system are continuous in the interior of the domain. Also, we establish the global pointwise bound for the Green function under the additional assumption that weak solutions of the conormal derivative problem for the Stokes system are locally bounded up to the boundary. We provide some examples satisfying such continuity and boundedness properties.
After giving a general introduction to the main known results on the anisotropic Calder{ó}n problem on n-dimensional compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary, we give a motivated review of some recent non-uniqueness results obtained in [5, 6] for the anisotropic Calder{ó}n problem at fixed frequency, in dimension n $\ge$ 3, when the Dirichlet and Neumann data are measured on disjoint subsets of the boundary. These non-uniqueness results are of the following nature: given a smooth compact connected Riemannian manifold with boundary (M, g) of dimension n $\ge$ 3, we first show that there exist…
We show that there is generically non-uniqueness for the anisotropic Calderón problem at fixed frequency when the Dirichlet and Neumann data are measured on disjoint sets of the boundary of a given domain. More precisely, we first show that given a smooth compact connected Riemannian manifold with boundary $(M,g)$ of dimension $n\geq 3$, there exist in the conformal class of $g$ an infinite number of Riemannian metrics $\tilde{g}$ such that their corresponding DN maps at a fixed frequency coincide when the Dirichlet data $Γ_D$ and Neumann data $Γ_N$ are measured on disjoint sets and satisfy $\…
We are concerned with the Lane-Emden problem \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} -Δu=u^{p} &{\text{in}~Ω},\\[0.5mm] u>0 &{\text{in}~Ω},\\[0.5mm] u=0 &{\text{on}~\partial Ω}, \end{cases} \end{equation*} where $Ω\subset \mathbb R^2$ is a smooth bounded domain and $p>1$ is sufficiently large. Improving some known asymptotic estimates on the solutions, we prove the non-degeneracy and local uniqueness of the multi-spikes positive solutions for general domains. Our methods mainly use ODE's theory, various local Pohozaev identities, blow-up analysis and the properties of Green's function.
We study compactness for nonnegative solutions of the fourth order constant $Q$-curvature equations on smooth compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension $\ge 5$. If the $Q$-curvature equals $-1$, we prove that all solutions are universally bounded. If the $Q$-curvature is $1$, assuming that Paneitz operator's kernel is trivial and its Green function is positive, we establish universal energy bounds on manifolds which are either locally conformally flat (LCF) or of dimension $\le 9$. Moreover, assuming in addition that a positive mass type theorem holds for the Paneitz operator, we prove compact…
The inhomogenous time-fractional telegraph equation with Caputo derevatives with constant coefficients is considered. For considered equation the general representation of regular solution in rectangular domain is obtained, and the fundamental solution is presented. Using this representation and the properties of fundamental solution, the Cauchy problem and the basic problems in half-strip and rectangular domains are studied. For Cauchy problem the theorems of existence and uniqueness of solution are proved, and the explicit form of solution is constructed. The solutions of the investigated pr…
In this paper we are concerned with the well-known Brezis-Nirenberg problem \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} -Δu= u^{\frac{N+2}{N-2}}+\varepsilon u, &{\text{in}~Ω},\\ u>0, &{\text{in}~Ω},\\ u=0, &{\text{on}~\partial Ω}. \end{cases} \end{equation*} The existence of multi-peak solutions to the above problem for small $\varepsilon>0$ was obtained by Musso and Pistoia. However, the uniqueness or the exact number of positive solutions to the above problem is still unknown. Here we focus on the local uniqueness of multi-peak solutions and the exact number of positive solutions to the above problem fo…
We study the Neumann and Dirichlet problems for the total variation flow in metric measure spaces. We prove existence and uniqueness of weak solutions and study their asymptotic behaviour. Furthermore, in the Neumann problem we provide a notion of solutions which is valid for $L^1$ initial data, as well as prove their existence and uniqueness. Our main tools are the first-order linear differential structure due to Gigli and a version of the Gauss-Green formula.
Consider the interior transmission problem arising in inverse boundary value problems for the diffusion equation with discontinuous diffusion coefficients. We prove the unique solvability of the interior transmission problem by constructing its Green function. First, we construct a local parametrix for the interior transmission problem near the boundary in the Laplace domain, by using the theory of pseudo-differential operators with a large parameter. Second, by carefully analyzing the analyticity of the local parametrix in the Laplace domain and estimating it there, a local parametrix for the…
In these lecture notes we discuss the solution theory of geometric wave equations as they arise in Lorentzian geometry: for a normally hyperbolic differential operator the existence and uniqueness properties of Green functions and Green operators is discussed including a detailed treatment of the Cauchy problem on a globally hyperbolic manifold both for the smooth and finite order setting. As application, the classical Poisson algebra of polynomial functions on the initial values and the dynamical Poisson algebra coming from the wave equation are related. The text contains an introduction to t…
This paper is concerned with uniqueness in inverse acoustic scattering with phaseless far-field data at a fixed frequency. In our previous work ({\em SIAM J. Appl. Math. \bf78} (2018), 1737-1753), by utilizing spectral properties of the far-field operator we proved for the first time that the obstacle and the index of refraction of an inhomogeneous medium can be uniquely determined by the phaseless far-field patterns generated by infinitely many sets of superpositions of two plane waves with different directions at a fixed frequency under the a priori assumption that the obstacle is known to b…
We provide explicit formulas for the Green function of an elliptic PDE in the infinite strip and the half-plane. They are expressed in elementary and special functions. Proofs of uniqueness and existence are also given.
In the previous paper "Stabilizing Inverse Problems by Internal Data", the authors introduced a simple procedure that allows one to detect whether and explain why internal information arising in several novel coupled physics (hybrid) imaging modalities could turn extremely unstable techniques, such as optical tomography or electrical impedance tomography, into stable, good-resolution procedures. It was shown that in all cases of interest, the Frechet derivative of the forward mapping is a pseudo-differential operator with an explicitly computable principal symbol. If one can set up the imaging…
