We give an existence proof for variational solutions $u$ associated to the total variation flow. Here, the functions being considered are defined on a metric measure space $(\mathcal{X}, d, μ)$ satisfying a doubling condition and supporting a Poincaré inequality. For such parabolic minimizers that coincide with a time-independent Cauchy-Dirichlet datum $u_0$ on the parabolic boundary of a space-time-cylinder $Ω\times (0, T)$ with $Ω\subset \mathcal{X}$ an open set and $T > 0$, we prove existence in the weak parabolic function space $L^1_w(0, T; \mathrm{BV}(Ω))$. In this paper, we generalize results from a previous work by Bögelein, Duzaar and Marcellini by introducing a more abstract notion for $\mathrm{BV}$-valued parabolic function spaces. We argue completely on a variational level.
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.
In this note we consider problems related to parabolic partial differential equations in geodesic metric measure spaces, that are equipped with a doubling measure and a Poincaré inequality. We prove a location and scale invariant Harnack inequality for a minimizer of a variational problem related to a doubly non-linear parabolic equation involving the p-Laplacian. Moreover, we prove the sufficiency of the Grigor'yan--Saloff-Coste theorem for general p > 1 in geodesic metric spaces. The approach used is strictly variational, and hence we are able to carry out the argument in the metric setting.
We give several characterizations of parabolic (quasisuper)- minimizers in a metric measure space equipped with a doubling measure and supporting a Poincaré inequality. We also prove a version of comparison principle for super- and subminimizers on parabolic space-time cylinders and a uniqueness result for minimizers of a boundary value problem. We also give an example showing that the corresponding results do not hold, in general, for quasiminimizers even in the Euclidean case.
This work investigates an inverse problem of determining the radiative coefficient in a degenerate parabolic equation from the final overspecified data. Being different from other inverse coefficient problems in which the principle coefficients are assumed to be strictly positive definite, the mathematical model discussed in the paper belongs to the second order parabolic equations with non-negative characteristic form, namely that there exists degeneracy on the lateral boundaries of the domain. The uniqueness of the solution is obtained by the contraction mapping principle. Based on the optim…
For proper minimizers of parabolic variational integrals with linear growth with respect to $|Du|$, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for $u$ to be continuous at a point $(x_o,t_o)$, in terms of a sufficient fast decay of the total variation of $u$ about $(x_o,t_o)$ (see (1.4) below). These minimizers arise also as {proper} solutions to the parabolic $1$-laplacian equation. Hence, the continuity condition continues to hold for such solutions (§ 3).
We study the minimizers of $L^2$-subcritical inhomogeneous variational problems with spatially decaying nonlinear terms, which contain $x = 0$ as a singular point. The limit concentration behavior of minimizers is proved as $M\to\infty$ by establishing the refined analysis of the spatially decaying nonlinear term.
We show that quasi-minimizers of non-homogeneous energy functionals on metric measure spaces are locally Hölder continuous and satisfy the Harnack inequality. We assume that the spaces are doubling and support a Poincaré inequality. The proof is based on the De Giorgi method, combined with the "expansion of positivity" technique.
In this paper we introduce a notion of almost minimizers for certain variational problems governed by the fractional Laplacian, with the help of the Caffarelli-Silvestre extension. In particular, we study almost fractional harmonic functions and almost minimizers for the fractional obstacle problem with zero obstacle. We show that for a certain range of parameters, almost minimizers are almost Lipschitz or $C^{1,β}$-regular.
In this paper we prove the uniqueness and radial symmetry of minimizers for variational problems that model several phenomena. The uniqueness is a consequence of the convexity of the functional. The main technique is Fourier transform of tempered distributions.
We prove regularity properties in the vector valued case for minimizers of variational integrals of the form $$A(u) = \int_ΩA(x,u,Du) dx$$ where the integrand $A(x,u,Du)$ is not necessarily continuous respect to the variable $x,$ grows polinomially like $|ξ|^p,$ $p \geq 2.$
A way to measure the lower growth rate of $φ:Ω\times [0,\infty) \to [0,\infty)$ is to require $t \mapsto φ(x,t)t^{-r}$ to be increasing in $(0,\infty)$. If this condition holds with $r=1$, then \[ \inf_{u\in f+W^{1, φ}_0(Ω)}\int_Ωφ(x, |\nabla u|) \, dx \] with boundary values $f\in W^{1,φ}(Ω)$ does not necessary have a minimizer. However, if $φ$ is replaced by $φ^p$, then the growth condition holds with $r=p > 1$ and thus (under some additional conditions) the corresponding energy integral has a minimizer. We show that a sequence $(u_p)$ of such minimizers convergences when $p \to 1^+$ in a su…
We consider the minimizers of $L^{2}$-critical inhomogeneous variational problems with a spatially decaying nonlinear term in an open bounded domain $Ω$ of $\mathbb{R}^{N}$ which contains $0$. We prove that there is a threshold $a^{*}>0$ such that minimizers exist for $0<a<a^{*}$ and the minimizer does not exist for any $a>a^{*}$. In contrast to the homogeneous case, we show that both the existence and nonexistence of minimizers may occur at the threshold $a^*$ depending on the value of $V(0)$, where $V(x)$ denotes the trapping potential. Moreover, under some suitable assumptions on $V(x)$, ba…
In this paper, we prove the existence of minimizers of a class of multi-constrained variational problems. We consider systems involving a nonlinearity that does not satisfy compactness, monotonicity, neither symmetry properties. Our approach hinges on the concentration-compactness approach. In the second part, we will treat orthogonal constrained problems for another class of integrands using density matrices method.
We construct a singular minimizing map ${\bf u}$ from $\mathbb{R}^3$ to $\mathbb{R}^2$ of a smooth uniformly convex functional of the form $\int_{B_1} F(D{\bf u})\,dx$.
We study the existence of segregated solutions to a class of reaction-diffusion systems with strong interactions, arising in many physical applications. These special solutions are obtained as weak limits of minimizers of a family of perturbed functionals. We prove some a priori estimates through a minimization procedure which is nonstandard in the parabolic theory: our approach is purely variational and all the information is encoded in the family of functionals we consider.
We establish an $\varepsilon$-regularity result for the derivative of a map of bounded variation that minimizes a strongly quasiconvex variational integral of linear growth, and, as a consequence, the partial regularity of such BV minimizers. This result extends the regularity theory for minimizers of quasiconvex integrals on Sobolev spaces to the context of maps of bounded variation. Previous partial regularity results for BV minimizers in the linear growth set-up were confined to the convex situation.
We study the regularity of solutions to a nonlocal variational problem, which is related to the image denoising model, and we show that, in two dimensions, minimizers have the same Hölder regularity as the original image. More precisely, if the datum is (locally) $β$-Hölder continuous for some $β\in (1-s,\,1]$, where $s \in (0,1)$ is a parameter related to the nonlocal operator, we prove that the solution is also $β$-Hölder continuous.
We prove a weak-strong convergence result for functionals of the form $\int_{\mathbb{R}^N} j(x, u, Du)\,dx$ on $W^{1,p}$, along equiintegrable sequences. We will then use it to study cases of equality in the extended Polya-Szegö inequality and discuss applications of such a result to prove the symmetry of minimizers of a class of variational problems including nonlocal terms under multiple constraints.
In this article we consider a variational problem related to a quasilinear singular problem and obtain a nonexistence result in a metric measure space with a doubling measure and a Poincaré inequality. Our method is purely variational and to the best of our knowledge, this is the first work concerning singular problems in a general metric setting.
We obtain monotonicity properties for minima and stable solutions of general energy functionals of the type $$ \int F(\nabla u, u, x) dx $$ under the assumption that a certain integral grows at most quadratically at infinity. As a consequence we obtain several rigidity results of global solutions in low dimensions.
We prove existence and uniqueness of minimizers for a family of energy functionals that arises in Elasticity and involves polyconvex integrands over a certain subset of displacement maps. This work extends previous results by Awi and Gangbo to a larger class of integrands. First, we study these variational problems over displacements for which the determinant is positive. Second, we consider a limit case in which the functionals are degenerate. In that case, the set of admissible displacements reduces to that of incompressible displacements which are measure preserving maps. Finally, we establ…
Existence and regularity of minimizers for a geometric variational problem is shown. The variational integral models an energy contribution of the interface between two immiscible fluids in the presence of surfactants and includes a Helfrich type contribution, a Frank type contribution and a coupling term between the orientation of the surfactants and the curvature of the interface. Analytical results are proven in a one--dimensional situation for curves.
The paper is concerned with functional type a posteriori estimates for the initial boundary value problem for a parabolic partial differential equation with an obstacle. We deduce a guaranteed and computable bound of the distance between the exact minimizer and any function from the admissible (energy) class of functions. Applications to the analysis of modeling errors caused by data implification are discussed. An important case of time incremental approximations is specially studied. Numerical examples presented in the last section show how the estimates work in practice.
We prove regularity results for the unique minimizer of the total variation functional, currently used in image processing analysis since the work by L. Rudin, S. Osher and E. Fatemi. In particular we show that if the source term $f$ is locally, respectively globally, Lipschitz, then the solution has the same regularity with local, respectively global, Lipschitz norm estimated accordingly. The result is proved in any dimension and for any (regular) domain. So far we extend a similar result proved earlier by V. Caselles, A. Chambolle and M. Novaga for dimension $N\leq 7$ and (in case of the glo…
We study existence, unicity and other geometric properties of the minimizers of the energy functional $$ \|u\|^2_{H^s(Ω)}+\int_ΩW(u)\,dx, $$ where $\|u\|_{H^s(Ω)}$ denotes the total contribution from $Ω$ in the $H^s$ norm of $u$ and $W$ is a double-well potential. We also deal with the solutions of the related fractional elliptic Allen-Cahn equation on the entire space $\mathbb{R}^n$. The results collected here will also be useful for forthcoming papers, where the second and the third author will study the $Γ$-convergence and the density estimates for level sets of minimizers.
We prove local boundedness of generalized solutions to a large class of variational problems of linear growth including boundary value problems of minimal surface type and models from image analysis related to the procedure of TV-regularization occurring in connection with the denoising of images, which might even be coupled with an inpainting process. Our main argument relies on a Moser-type iteration procedure.
We establish local higher integrability and differentiability results for minimizers of variational integrals $$ \mathfrak{F}(v,Ω) = \int_Ω /! F(Dv(x)) \, dx $$ over $W^{1,p}$--Sobolev mappings $u \colon Ω\subset {\mathbb R}^n \to {\mathbb R}^N$ satisfying a Dirichlet boundary condition. The integrands $F$ are assumed to be autonomous, convex and of $(p,q)$ growth, but are otherwise not subjected to any further structure conditions, and we consider exponents in the range $1<p \leq q < p^{\ast}$, where $p^{\ast}$ denotes the Sobolev conjugate exponent of $p$.
In this paper we prove the Lipschitz regularity for local minimizers of convex variational integrals of the form \[ \mathfrak{F}( v, Ω)= \int_Ω \! F(x, Dv(x)) \, dx, \] where, for ${n > 2}$ and $N\ge 1$, $Ω$ is a bounded open set in $\mathbb{R}^n$, $u \in W^{1,1}(Ω, \mathbb{R}^N)$ and the energy density $F:Ω\times \mathbb{R}^{N \times n}\to \mathbb{R}$ satisfies the so called variable growth conditions. The main novelty of the paper is that we assume an almost critical regularity in the Orlicz Sobolev setting for the energy density as a function of the $x$ variable.
Periodic waves of the modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation are identified in the context of a new variational problem with two constraints. The advantage of this variational problem is that its non-degenerate local minimizers are stable in the time evolution of the mKdV equation, whereas the saddle points are unstable. We explore the analytical representation of periodic waves given by Jacobi elliptic functions and compute numerically critical points of the constrained variational problem. A broken pitchfork bifurcation of three smooth solution families is found. Two families represent (…
The Energy-Dissipation Principle provides a variational tool for the analysis of parabolic evolution problems: solutions are characterized as so-called null-minimizers of a global functional on entire trajectories. This variational technique allows for applying the general results of the calculus of variations to the underlying differential problem and has been successfully applied in a variety of deterministic cases, ranging from doubly nonlinear flows to curves of maximal slope in metric spaces. The aim of this note is to extend the Energy-Dissipation Principle to stochastic parabolic evolut…
We prove the existence of a continuous $BV$ minimizer with $C^{0}$ boundary value for the $p$-area (pseudohermitian or horizontal area) in a parabolically convex bounded domain. We extend the domain of the area functional from $BV$ functions to vector-valued measures. Our main purpose is to study the first and second variations of such a generalized area functional including the contribution of the singular part. By giving examples in Riemannian and pseudohermitian geometries, we illustrate several known results in a unified way. We show the contribution of the singular curve in the first and …
Motivated by Ball and Majumdar's modification of Landau-de Gennes model for nematic liquid crystals, we study energy-minimizer $Q$ of a tensor-valued variational obstacle problem in a bounded 3-D domain with prescribed boundary data. The energy functional is designed to blow up as $Q$ approaches the obstacle. Under certain assumptions, especially on blow-up profile of the singular bulk potential, we prove higher interior regularity of $Q$, and show that the contact set of $Q$ is either empty, or small with characterization of its Hausdorff dimension. We also prove boundary partial regularity o…
We prove global Lipschitz regularity for a wide class of convex variational integrals among all functions in $W^{1,1}$ with prescribed (sufficiently regular) boundary values, which are not assumed to satisfy any geometrical constraint (as for example bounded slope condition). Furthermore, we do not assume any restrictive assumption on the geometry of the domain and the result is valid for all sufficiently smooth domains. The result is achieved with a suitable approximation of the functional together with a new construction of appropriate barrier functions.
This paper deals with continuity preservation when minimizing generalized total variation with a $L^2$ fidelity term or a Dirichlet boundary condition. We extend several recent results in the two cases, mainly by showing comparison principles for the prescribed mean curvature problem satisfied by the level-sets of such minimizers.
We mainly discuss superquadratic minimization problems for splitting-type variational integrals on a bounded Lipschitz domain $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^2$ and prove higher integrability of the gradient up to the boundary by incorporating an appropriate weight-function measuring the distance of the solution to the boundary data. As a corollary, the local Hölder coefficient with respect to some improved Hölder continuity is quantified in terms of the function ${\rm dist}(\cdot,\partial Ω)$. The results are extended to anisotropic problems without splitting structure under natural growth and elliptici…
In this paper, we obtain an explicit formula for the discrepancy between the limit of the second inner variations of $p$-Laplace Allen-Cahn energies and the second inner variation of their $Γ$-limit which is the area functional. Our analysis explains the mysterious discrepancy term found in our previous paper \cite{Le} in the case $p=2$. The discrepancy term turns out to be related to the convergence of certain 4-tensors which are absent in the usual Allen-Cahn functional. These (hidden) 4-tensors suggest that, in the complex-valued Ginzburg-Landau setting, we should expect a different discrep…
We consider functionals of the form $$\mathcal{F}(u):=\int_Ω\!F(x,u,\nabla u)\,\mathrm{d} x,$$ where $Ω\subseteq\mathbb{R}^n$ is open and bounded. The integrand $F\colonΩ\times\mathbb{R}^N\times\mathbb{R}^{N\times n}\to\mathbb{R}$ is assumed to satisfy the classical assumptions of a power $p$-growth and the corresponding strong quasiconvexity. In addition, $F$ is Hölder continuous with exponent $2β\in(0,1)$ in its first two variables uniformly with respect to the third variable, and bounded below by a quasiconvex function depending only on $z\in\mathbb{R}^{N\times n}$. We establish that strong…
We consider the Perona-Malik functional in dimension one, namely an integral functional whose Lagrangian is convex-concave with respect to the derivative, with a convexification that is identically zero. We approximate and regularize the functional by adding a term that depends on second order derivatives multiplied by a small coefficient. We investigate the asymptotic behavior of minima and minimizers as this small parameter vanishes. In particular, we show that minimizers exhibit the so-called staircasing phenomenon, namely they develop a sort of microstructure that looks like a piecewise co…
We prove a partial regularity result for local minimizers of quasiconvex variational integrals with general growth. The main tool is an improved A-harmonic approximation, which should be interesting also for classical growth.
We study the behaviour of solutions of linear non-autonomous parabolic equations subject to Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions under perturbation of the domain. We prove that Mosco convergence of function spaces for non-autonomous parabolic problems is equivalent to Mosco convergence of function spaces for the corresponding elliptic problems. As a consequence, we obtain convergence of solutions of non-autonomous parabolic equations under domain perturbation by variational methods using the same characterisation of domains as in elliptic case. A similar technique can be applied to obtain …
We study the partial regularity of minimizers for certain singular functionals in the calculus of variations, motivated by Ball and Majumdar's recent modification [BM] of the Landau-de Gennes energy functional.
We investigate properties of minimizers of a variational model describing the shape of charged liquid droplets. The model, proposed by Muratov and Novaga, takes into account the regularizing effect due to the screening of free counterionions in the droplet. In particular we prove partial regularity of minimizers, a first step toward the understanding of further properties of minimizers.
In the present paper we deal with parabolic fractional initial-boundary value problems of Sturm Liouville type in an interval and in a general star graph. We first give several existence, uniqueness and regularity results of weak and very-weak solutions. We prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions to a quadratic boundary optimal control problem and provide a characterization of the optimal contol via the Euler Lagrange first order optimality conditions. We then investigate the analogous problems for a fractional Sturm Liouville problem in a general star graph with mixed Dirichlet and Ne…
We continue the analysis of some modifications of the total variation image inpainting method formulated on the space $BV(Ω)^M$ in the sense that we generalize the main results of [32] to the case that a more general data fitting term is involved. As in [32] we deal with vector-valued images, we do not impose any structure condition on our density $F$ and the dimension of the domain $Ω$ is arbitrary. Precisely we discuss existence of generalized solutions of the corresponding variational problem and we will also pass to the associated dual variational problem for which we show unique solvabili…
A class of variational models describing ecological systems of k species competing for the same resources is investigated. The occurrence of coexistence in minimal energy solutions is discussed and positive results are proven for suitably differentiated internal dynamics.
We study the minimization of convex, variational integrals of linear growth among all functions in the Sobolev space $W^{1,1}$ with prescribed boundary values (or its equivalent formulation as a boundary value problem for a degenerately elliptic Euler--Lagrange equation). Due to insufficient compactness properties of these Dirichlet classes, the existence of solutions does not follow in a standard way by the direct method in the calculus of variations and in fact might fail, as it is well-known already for the non-parametric minimal surface problem. Assuming radial structure, we establish a ne…
We study properties of an attractive-repulsive energy functional based on power-kernels, which can be used for halftoning of images. In the first part of this work, using a variational framework for probability measures, we examine existence and behavior of minimizers to the functional and to a regularization of it by a total variation term. Moreover, we introduce particle approximations to the functional and to its regularized version and prove their consistency in terms of Gamma-convergence, which we additionally illustrate by numerical examples. In the second part, we consider the gradient …
We prove the existence of global-in-time weak solutions to a version of the parabolic-parabolic Keller-Segel system in one spatial dimension. If the coupling of the system is suitably weak, we prove convergence of those solutions to the unique equilibrium with an exponential rate. Our proofs are based on an underlying gradient flow structure with respect to a mixed Wasserstein-$L^2$ distance.
We study the existence of traveling waves for the parabolic system \begin{equation} \partial_t w - \partial_{x}^2 w = -\nabla_{\mathbb{u}} W(w) \mbox{ in } [0,+\infty) \times \mathbb{R} \end{equation} where $W$ is a potential bounded below and possessing two minima at different levels. We say that $\mathfrak{w}$ is a traveling wave solution of the previous equation if there exist $c^\star>0$ and $\mathfrak{u} \in \mathcal{C}^2(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R}^k)$ such that $\mathfrak{w}(t,x)=\mathfrak{u}(x-ct)$. For a class of potentials $W$, heteroclinic traveling waves of the previous equation where sh…
We discuss the local minimality of certain configurations for a nonlocal isoperimetric problem used to model microphase separation in diblock copolymer melts. We show that critical configurations with positive second variation are local minimizers of the nonlocal area functional and, in fact, satisfy a quantitative isoperimetric inequality with respect to sets that are $L^1$-close. The link with local minimizers for the diffuse-interface Ohta-Kawasaki energy is also discussed. As a byproduct of the quantitative estimate, we get new results concerning periodic local minimizers of the area funct…
