We extend an inequality for harmonic functions, obtained in previous research by the authors, to the case of solutions of uniformly elliptic equations in divergence form, with merely measurable coefficients. The inequality for harmonic functions turned out to be a crucial ingredient in the study of the stability of the radial symmetry for Alexandrov's Soap Bubble Theorem and Serrin's problem. The proof of our inequality is based on a mean value property for elliptic operators by L. Caffarelli, proved in full detail by I. Blank and Z. Hao.
We study local regularity properties for solutions of linear, non-uniformly elliptic equations. Assuming certain integrability conditions on the coefficient field, we prove local boundedness and Harnack inequality. The assumed integrability assumptions are essentially sharp and improve upon classical results by Trudinger [ARMA 1971]. We then apply the deterministic regularity results to the corrector equation in stochastic homogenization and establish sublinearity of the corrector.
The weak Harnack inequality for $L^p$-viscosity supersolutions of fully nonlinear second-order uniformly parabolic partial differential equations with unbounded coefficients and inhomogeneous terms is proved. It is shown that Hölder continuity of $L^p$-viscosity solutions is derived from the weak Harnack inequality for $L^p$-viscosity supersolutions. The local maximum principle for $L^p$-viscosity subsolutions and the Harnack inequality for $L^p$-viscosity solutions are also obtained. Several further remarks are presented when equations have superlinear growth in the first space derivatives.
We establish a one-parameter family of Harnack inequalities connecting the constrained trace Li-Yau differential Harnack inequality for a nonlinear parabolic equation to the constrained trace Chow-Hamilton Harnack inequality for this nonlinear equation with respect to evolving metrics related to Ricci flow on a 2-dimensional closed manifold. This result can be regarded as a nonlinear version of the previous work of Y. Zheng and the author (Arch. Math. 94 (2010), 591-600).
We begin by recalling the definition of nonnegative quasinearly subharmonic functions on locally uniformly homogeneous spaces. Recall that these spaces and this function class are rather general: among others subharmonic, quasisubharmonic and nearly subharmonic functions on domains of Euclidean spaces ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, $n\geq 2$, are included. The following result of Gehring and Hallenbeck is classical: Every subharmonic function, defined and ${\mathcal{L}}^p$-integrable for some $p$, $0<p<+\infty$, on the unit disk ${\mathbb{D}}$ of the complex plane ${\mathbb{C}}$ is for almost all $θ$ of th…
We consider viscosity solutions to nonlinear uniformly parabolic equations in nondivergence form on a Riemannian manifold $M$, with the sectional curvature bounded from below by $-κ$ for $κ\geq 0$. In the elliptic case, Wang and Zhang \cite{WZ} recently extended the results of \cite{Ca} to nonlinear elliptic equations in nondivergence form on such $M$, where they obtained the Harnack inequality for classical solutions. We establish the Harnack inequality for nonnegative {\it viscosity solutions} to nonlinear uniformly {\it parabolic equations} in nondivergence form on $M$. The Harnack inequali…
We give full boundary extensions to two fundamental estimates in the theory of elliptic PDE, the weak Harnack inequality and the quantitative strong maximum principle, for uniformly elliptic equations in non-divergence form.
We prove an invariant Harnack's inequality for operators in non-divergence form structured on Heisenberg vector fields when the coefficient matrix is uniformly positive definite, continuous, and symplectic. The method consists in constructing appropriate barriers to obtain pointwise-to-measure estimates for supersolutions in small balls, and then invoking the axiomatic approach from [DGL08] to obtain Harnack's inequality.
We show that two classically known properties of positive supersolutions of uniformly elliptic PDEs, the boundary point principle (Hopf lemma) and global integrability, can be quantified with respect to each other. We obtain an extension to the boundary of the de Giorgi-Moser weak Harnack inequality, optimal with respect to the norms involved, for equations in divergence form.
A Brunn--Minkowski inequality and Convexity for the 2-Hessian eigenvalue in convex domains
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院数学与系统科学研究院）；Università degli Studi di Firenze（佛罗伦萨大学）
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 prove surface and volume mean value formulas for classical solutions to uniformly parabolic equations in divergence form. We then use them to prove the parabolic strong maximum principle and the parabolic Harnack inequality. We emphasize that our results only rely on the classical theory, and our arguments follow the lines used in the original theory of harmonic functions. We provide two proofs relying on two different formulations of the divergence theorem, one stated for sets with almost C^1 boundary, the other stated for sets with finite perimeter.
We obtain heat kernel estimates for a class of fourth order non-uniformly elliptic operators in two dimensions. Contrary to existing results, the operators considered have symbols that are not strongly convex. This rises certain difficulties as it is known that, as opposed to the strongly convex case, there is no absolute exponential constant. Our estimates involve sharp constants and Finsler-type distances that are induced by the operator symbol. The main result is based on two general hypotheses, a weighted Sobolev inequalitry and an interpolation inequality, which are related to the singula…
It is a classical result that every subharmonic function, defined and ${\mathcal{L}}^p$-integrable for some $p$, $0<p<+\infty$, on the unit disk $\mathbb{D}$ of the complex plane ${\mathbb{C}}$ is for almost all $θ$ of the form $o((1-| z|)^{-1/p})$, uniformly as $z\to e^{iθ}$ in any Stolz domain. Recently Pavlović gave a related integral inequality for absolute values of harmonic functions, also defined on the unit disk in the complex plane. We generalize Pavlović's result to so called quasi-nearly subharmonic functions defined on rather general domains in ${\mathbb {R}}^n$, $n\geq 2$.
We prove a Liouville type theorem for arbitrarily growing positive viscosity supersolutions of fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations in halfspaces. Precisely, let $M^-_{λ, Λ}$ be the Pucci's inf- operator, defined as the infimum of all linear uniformly elliptic operators with ellipticity constants $Λ\geq λ>0$. Then, we prove that the inequality $M^-_{λ, Λ}(D^2u) +u^p \leq 0$ does not have any positive viscosity solution in a halfspace provided that $-1\leq p \leq (Λ/λn+1)/(Λ/λn-1)$, whereas positive solutions do exist if either $p < -1$ or $p > (Λ/λ(n-1)+2)/(Λ/λ(n-1))$. This will be acc…
We prove a quantitative, large-scale doubling inequality and large-scale three-ellipsoid inequality for solutions of uniformly elliptic equations with periodic coefficients. These estimates are optimal in terms of the minimal length scale on which they are valid, and are at least "almost" optimal in the prefactor constants--up to, at most, an iterated logarithm of the initial doubling ratio.
We study harmonic and quasi-harmonic discs in metric spaces admitting a uniformly local quadratic isoperimetric inequality for curves. The class of such metric spaces includes compact Lipschitz manifolds, metric spaces with upper or lower curvature bounds in the sense of Alexandrov, some sub-Riemannian manifolds, and many more. In this setting, we prove local Hoelder continuity and continuity up to the boundary of harmonic and quasi-harmonic discs.
We consider uniformly parabolic equations and inequalities of second order in the non-divergence form with drift \[-u_{t}+Lu=-u_{t}+\sum_{ij}a_{ij}D_{ij}u+\sum b_{i}D_{i}u=0\,(\geq0,\,\leq0)\] in some domain $Q\subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. We prove growth theorems and the interior Harnack inequality as the main results. In this paper, we will only assume the drift $b$ is in certain Lebesgue spaces which are critical under the parabolic scaling but not necessarily to be bounded. In the last section, some applications of the interior Harnack inequality are presented. In particular, we show there is…
The uniformization and hyperbolization transformations formulated by Bonk, Heinonen and Koskela in \emph{"Uniformizing Gromov Hyperbolic Spaces"}, Astérisque {\bf 270} (2001), dealt with geometric properties of metric spaces. In this paper we consider metric measure spaces and construct a parallel transformation of measures under the uniformization and hyperbolization procedures. We show that if a locally compact roughly starlike Gromov hyperbolic space is equipped with a measure that is uniformly locally doubling and supports a uniformly local $p$-Poincaré inequality, then the transformed mea…
Consider a discrete uniformly elliptic divergence form equation on the $d$ dimensional lattice $\Z^d$ with random coefficients. In [3] rate of convergence results in homogenization and estimates on the difference between the averaged Green's function and the homogenized Green's function for random environments which satisfy a Poincaré inequality were obtained. Here these results are extended to certain environments with long range correlations. These environments are simply related via a convolution to environments which do satisfy a Poincaré inequality.
We prove an energy inequality for nonlocal diffusion operators of the following type, and some of its generalisations: $Lu (x) := \int_{\mathbb{R}^N} K(x,y) (u(y) - u(x)) dy$, where $L$ acts on a real function $u$ defined on $\mathbb{R}^N$, and we assume that $K(x,y)$ is uniformly strictly positive in a neighbourhood of $x=y$. The inequality is a nonlocal analogue of the Nash inequality, and plays a similar role in the study of the asymptotic decay of solutions to the nonlocal diffusion equation $\partial_t u = L u$ as the Nash inequality does for the heat equation. The inequality allows us to…
Let $(M,g(t))$, $0\le t\le T$, $\partial M\neϕ$, be a compact $n$-dimensional manifold, $n\ge 2$, with metric $g(t)$ evolving by the Ricci flow such that the second fundamental form of $\partial M$ with respect to the unit outward normal of $\partial M$ is uniformly bounded below on $\partial M\times [0,T]$. We will prove a global Li-Yau gradient estimate for the solution of the generalized conjugate heat equation on $M\times [0,T]$. We will give another proof of Perelman's Li-Yau-Hamilton type inequality for the fundamental solution of the conjugate heat equation on closed manifolds without u…
