In this paper we consider an obstacle problem for a generalization of the p-elastic energy among graphical curves with fixed ends. Taking into account that the Euler--Lagrange equation has a degeneracy, we address the question whether solutions have a flat part, i.e. an open interval where the curvature vanishes. We also investigate which is the main cause of the loss of regularity, the obstacle or the degeneracy. Moreover, we give several conditions on the obstacle that assure existence and nonexistence of solutions. The analysis can be refined in the special case of the p-elastica functional, where we obtain sharp existence results and uniqueness for symmetric minimizers.
We consider a parabolic obstacle problem for Euler's elastic energy of graphs with fixed ends. We show global existence, well-posedness and subconvergence provided that the obstacle and the initial datum are suitably 'small'. For symmetric cone obstacles we can improve the subconvergence to convergence. Qualitative aspects such as energy dissipation, coincidence with the obstacle and time regularity are also examined.
This paper is concerned with the variational problem for the elastic energy defined on symmetric graphs under the unilateral constraint. Assuming that the obstacle function satisfies the symmetric cone condition, we prove (i) uniqueness of minimizers, (ii) loss of regularity of minimizers, and give (iii) complete classification of existence and non-existence of minimizers in terms of the size of obstacle. As an application, we characterize the solution of the obstacle problem as equilibrium of the corresponding dynamical problem.
We consider the time-harmonic elastic wave scattering from a general (possibly anisotropic) inhomogeneous medium with an embedded impenetrable obstacle. We show that the impenetrable obstacle can be effectively approximated by an isotropic elastic medium with a particular choice of material parameters. We derive sharp estimates to rigorously verify such an effective approximation. Our study is strongly motivated by the related studies of two challenging inverse elastic problems including the inverse boundary problem with partial data and the inverse scattering problem of recovering mediums wit…
We examine a steepest energy descent flow with obstacle constraint in higher order energy frameworks where the maximum principle is not available. We construct the flow under general assumptions using De Giorgi's minimizing movement scheme. Our main application will be the elastic flow of graph curves with Navier boundary conditions for which we study long-time existence and asymptotic behavior.
Consider an exterior problem of the three-dimensional elastic wave equation, which models the scattering of a time-harmonic plane wave by a rigid obstacle. The scattering problem is reformulated into a boundary value problem by introducing a transparent boundary condition. Given the incident field, the direct problem is to determine the displacement of the wave field from the known obstacle; the inverse problem is to determine the obstacle's surface from the measurement of the displacement on an artificial boundary enclosing the obstacle. In this paper, we consider both the direct and inverse …
A developable cone ("d-cone") is the shape made by an elastic sheet when it is pressed at its center into a hollow cylinder by a distance $ε$. Starting from a nonlinear model depending on the thickness $h > 0$ of the sheet, we prove a $Γ$-convergence result as $h \rightarrow 0$ to a fourth-order obstacle problem for curves in $\mathbb{S}^2$. We then describe the exact shape of minimizers of the limit problem when $ε$ is small. In particular, we rigorously justify previous results in the physics literature.
Consider the scattering of an acoustic plane wave by a bounded elastic obstacle which is immersed in an open space filled with a homogeneous medium. This paper concerns the mathematical analysis of the coupled two- and three-dimensional acoustic-elastic wave propagation problem in the time-domain. A compressed coordinate transformation is proposed to reduce equivalently the scattering problem into an initial-boundary value problem in a bounded domain over a finite time interval. The reduced problem is shown to have a unique weak solution by using the Galerkin method. The stability estimate and…
This paper concerns an inverse elastic scattering problem which is to determine the location and the shape of a rigid obstacle from the phased or phaseless far-field data for a single incident plane wave. By introducing the Helmholtz decomposition, the model problem is reduced to a coupled boundary value problem of the Helmholtz equations. The relation is established between the compressional or shear far-field pattern for the elastic wave equation and the corresponding far-field pattern for the coupled Helmholtz equations. An efficient and accurate Nyström type discretization for the boundary…
We deal with the problem of the linearized and isotropic elastic inverse scattering by interfaces. We prove that the scattered $P$-parts or $S$-parts of the far field pattern, corresponding to all the incident plane waves of pressure or shear types, uniquely determine the obstacles for both the penetrable and impenetrable obstacles. In addition, we state a reconstruction procedure. In the analysis, we assume only the Lipschitz regularity of the interfaces and, for the penetrable case, the Lam{é} coefficients to be measurable and bounded, inside the obstacles, with the usual jumps across these …
In this work, we are concerned with the inverse scattering by interfaces for the linearized and isotropic elastic model at a fixed frequency. First, we derive complex geometrical optic solutions with linear or spherical phases having a computable dominant part and an $H^α$-decaying remainder term with $α<3$, where $H^α$ is the classical Sobolev space. Second, based on these properties, we estimate the convex hull as well as non convex parts of the interface using the farfields of only one of the two reflected body waves (pressure waves or shear waves) as measurements. The results are given for…
The first part of this paper is concerned with the uniqueness to inverse time-harmonic elastic scattering from bounded rigid obstacles in two dimensions. It is proved that a connected polygonal obstacle can be uniquely identified by the far-field pattern over all observation directions corresponding to a single incident plane wave. Our approach is based on a new reflection principle for the first boundary value problem of the Navier equation. In the second part, we propose a revisited factorization method to recover a rigid elastic body with a single far-field pattern.
We consider the inverse elastic scattering problems using the far field data due to one incident plane wave. A simple method is proposed to reconstruct the location and size of the obstacle using different components of the far field pattern. The method sets up linear ill-posed integral equations for sampling points in the domain of interrogation and uses the (approximate) solutions to compute indicators. Using the far field patterns of rigid disks as the kernels of the integral equations and moving the measured data to the right hand side, the method has the ability to process limited apertur…
We are concerned with the linearized, isotropic and homogeneous elastic scattering problem by (possibly many) small rigid obstacles of arbitrary Lipschitz regular shapes in 3D. Based on the Foldy-Lax approximation, valid under a sufficient condition on the number of the obstacles, the size and the minimum distance between them, we show that any of the two body waves, namely the pressure waves P or the shear waves S, is enough for solving the inverse problem of detecting these scatterers and estimating their sizes. Further, it is also shown that the shear-horizontal part SH or the shear vertica…
In this article, we prove that solutions to a problem in nonlinear elasticity corresponding to small initial displacements exist globally in the exterior of a nontrapping obstacle. The medium is assumed to be homogeneous, isotropic, and hyperelastic, and the nonlinearity is assumed to satisfy a null condition. The techniques contained herein would allow for more complicated geometries provided that there is a sufficient decay of local energy for the linearized problem.
In this paper, we consider the scattering of a time-dependent electromagnetic wave by an elastic body immersed in the lower half-space of a two-layered background medium which is separated by an unbounded rough surface. By proposing two exact transparent boundary conditions (TBCs) on the artificial planes, we reformulate the unbounded scattering problem into an equivalent initial-boundary value problem in a strip domain with the well-posedness and stability proved using the Laplace transform, variational method and energy method. A perfectly matched layer (PML) is then introduced to truncate t…
For a model of a driven interface in an elastic medium with random obstacles we prove existence of a stationary positive supersolution at non-vanishing driving force. This shows the emergence of a rate independent hysteresis through the interaction of the interface with the obstacles, despite a linear (force=velocity) microscopic kinetic relation. We also prove a percolation result, namely the possibility to embed the graph of an only logarithmically growing function in a next-nearest neighbor site-percolation cluster at a non-trivial percolation threshold.
In this paper, we give a positive answer to a longstanding open problem for determining the shape of an obstacle from the knowledge of the far field pattern for the scattering of time-harmonic elastic wave. We show that the elastic far field pattern by an incoming plane wave with a fixed frequency, a fixed incident direction and a fixed polarization determines the obstacle $D$ and the boundary condition on $\partial D$ uniquely. The boundary condition on $\partial D$ is either the Dirichlet, or the Neumann, or the Robin one.
An incoming elastodynamic wave impinges on an elastic obstacle is embedded in an infinite elastic medium. The objective of the paper is to examine the subsequent elastic fields scattered by and transmitted into the elastic obstacle. By applying a boundary-field equation method, we are able to formulate a nonlocal boundary problem (NBP) in the Laplace transformed domain, using the field equations inside the obstacle and boundary integral equations in the exterior elastic medium. Existence, uniqueness and stability of the solutions to the NBP are established in Sobolev spaces for two different i…
In this paper we prove that the energy - critical nonlinear Schr{ö}dinger equation in the domain exterior to a convex obstacle is globally well - posed and scattering for initial data having finite energy. To prove this we utilize frequency localized Morawetz estimates adapted to an exterior domain.
In our earlier paper [9], it is proved that a homogeneous rigid, traction or impedance condition on one or two intersecting line segments together with a certain zero point-value condition implies that the solution to the Lamé system must be identically zero, which is referred to as the generalized Holmgren principle (GHP). The GHP enables us to solve a longstanding inverse scattering problem of determining a polygonal elastic obstacle of general impedance type by at most a few far-field measurements. In this paper, we include all the possible physical boundary conditions from linear elasticit…
We discuss error identities for two classes of free boundary problems generated by obstacles. The identities suggest true forms of the respective error measures which consist of two parts: standard energy norm and a certain nonlinear measure. The latter measure controls (in a weak sense) approximation of free boundaries. Numerical tests confirm sharpness of error identities and show that in different examples one or another part of the error measure may be dominant.
The repulsion strength at the origin for repulsive/attractive potentials determines the regularity of local minimizers of the interaction energy. In this paper, we show that if this repulsion is like Newtonian or more singular than Newtonian (but still locally integrable), then the local minimizers must be locally bounded densities (and even continuous for more singular than Newtonian repulsion). We prove this (and some other regularity results) by first showing that the potential function associated to a local minimizer solves an obstacle problem and then by using classical regularity results…
We consider the defocusing energy-critical nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the exterior of a smooth compact strictly convex obstacle in three dimensions. For the initial-value problem with Dirichlet boundary condition we prove global well-posedness and scattering for all initial data in the energy space.
In this paper, we deal with an obstacle placement problem inside a disk, that can be formulated as an energy minimization problem with respect to the rotations of the obstacle about its center, with respect to the translations of the obstacle within a planar disk and also with respect to the expansion or contraction of the obstacle inside the disk. We also include its sensitivity with respect to the boundary data. We consider an inhomogeneous Dirichlet Boundary Value Problem on $ B \setminus P$ as follows: $Δu =0$ on $ B \setminus P$, $u=0$ on $\partial P$, $u=M$, a nonzero constant on $\parti…
A free boundary problem arising from materials science is studied in one-dimensional case. The problem studied here is an obstacle problem for the non-convex energy consisting of a bending energy, tension and an adhesion energy. If the bending energy, which is a higher order term, is deleted then "edge" singularities of the solutions (surfaces) may occur at the free boundary as Alt-Caffarelli type variational problems. The main result of this paper is to give a singular limit of the energy utilizing the notion of $Γ$-convergence, when the bending energy can be regarded as a perturbation. This …
We are concerned with the linearized, isotropic and homogeneous elastic scattering problem by many small rigid obstacles of arbitrary, Lipschitz regular, shapes in 3D case. We prove that there exists two constant $a_0$ and $c_0$, depending only on the Lipschitz character of the obstacles, such that under the conditions $a\leq a_0$ and $\sqrt{M-1}\frac{a}{d} \leq c_0$ on the number $M$ of the obstacles, their maximum diameter $a$ and the minimum distance between them $d$, the corresponding Foldy-Lax approximation of the farfields is valid. In addition, we provide the error of this approximation…
In this paper we consider the unique determination of inhomogeneities together with possible buried obstacles by scattering measurements. Under the assumption that the buried obstacles have only planar contacts with the inhomogeneities, we prove that one can recover both of them by knowing the associated scattering amplitude at a fixed energy.
Consider the mixed problem with Dirichelet condition associated to the wave equation $\partial_t^2u-\Div_{x}(a(t,x)\nabla_{x}u)=0$, where the scalar metric $a(t,x)$ is $T$-periodic in $t$ and uniformly equal to 1 outside a compact set in $x$, on a $T$-periodic domain. Let $\mathcal U(t, 0)$ be the associated propagator. Assuming that the perturbations are non-trapping, we prove the meromorphic continuation of the cut-off resolvent of the Floquet operator $\mathcal U(T, 0)$ and establish sufficient conditions for local energy decay.
We study thin obstacle problems involving the energy functional with $p(x)$-growth. We prove higher integrability and Hölder regularity for the gradient of minimizers of the thin obstacle problems under the assumption that the variable exponent $p(x)$ is Hölder continuous.
The purpose of the present paper is to establish appropriate cut-off resolvent estimates for the Dirichlet Laplacian on exterior domains. The geometrical assumptions on domains are rather general, for example, non-trapping condition is not imposed. The first key assumption guarantees the result on propagation of singularities, the second is the smallness of the Lebesgue measure of the portions of the trapped sets in the fibers of cosphere bundle, and the third concerns the upper bound of the sojourn time. As a by-product of these estimates, the local energy decay estimate for solutions to the …
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…
In this paper we study the regularity properties of $Λ$-minimizers of the capillarity energy in a half space with the wet part constrained to be confined inside a given planar region. Applications to a model for nanowire growth are also provided.
We prove the existence of a homogenization limit for solutions of appropriately formulated sequences of boundary obstacle problems for the Laplacian on $C^{1,α}$ domains. Specifically, we prove that the energy minimizers $u_ε$ of $\int |\nabla u_ε|^2 dx$, subject to $u \geq ϕ$ on a subset $S_ε$, converges weakly in $H^1$ to a limit $\bar{u}$ which minimizes the energy $\int |\nabla \bar{u}|^2 dx + \int_Σ(u-ϕ)_-^2 μ(x) dS_x$, $Σ\subset \partial D$, if the obstacle set $S_ε$ shrinks in an appropriate way with the scaling parameter $ε$. This is an extension of a result by Caffarelli and Mellet, w…
Existence of stationary solutions to a nonlocal fourth-order elliptic obstacle problem arising from the modelling of microelectromechanical systems with heterogeneous dielectric properties is shown. The underlying variational structure of the model is exploited to construct these solutions as minimizers of a suitably regularized energy, which allows us to weaken considerably the assumptions on the model used in a previous article.
Scattering for the energy critical non-linear wave equation for domains exterior to non trapping obstacles in 3+1 dimension is known for the star-shaped case. In this paper, we extend the scattering for a class of non star-shaped obstacles called illuminated from exterior. The main tool we use is the method of multipliers with weights that generalize the Morawetz multiplier to suit the geometry of the obstacle.
In this paper, we consider the Schrödinger equation with a mass-supercritical focusing nonlinearity, in the exterior of a smooth, compact, convex obstacle of $\R^{d}$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We prove that solutions with negative energy blow up in finite time. Assuming furthermore that the nonlinearity is energy-subcritical, we also prove (under additional symmetry conditions) blow-up with the same optimal ground-state criterion than in the work of Holmer and Roudenko on $\R^{d}$. The classical proof of Glassey, based on the concavity of the variance, fails in the exterior of an obs…
We study long time existence for high dimensional quasilinear wave equations exterior to star-shaped obstacles. In particular, we obtain exterior domain analogs of the four dimensional results of Hörmander where the nonlinearity is permitted to depend on the solution not just its first and second derivatives. Previous proofs in exterior domains omitted this dependence as it did not mesh well with the energy methods in use.
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 cope with a free boundary fluid-structure interaction model. In the model, the viscous incompressible fluid interacts with elastic body via the common boundary. The motion of the fluid is governed by Navier-Stokes equations while the displacement of elastic structure is described by variable coefficient wave equations. The dissipation is placed on the common boundary between fluid and elastic body. Given small initial data, the global existence of the solutions of this system is proved and the exponential decay of solutions are obtained.
We study a family of gradient obstacle problems on a compact Riemannian manifold. We prove that the solutions of these free boundary problems are uniformly semiconcave and, as a consequence, we obtain some fine convergence results for the solutions and their free boundaries. Precisely, we show that the elastic and the $λ$-elastic sets of the solutions Hausdorff converge to the cut locus and the $λ$-cut locus of the manifold.
