In this paper we establish existence and compactness of solutions to a general fully nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem on locally conformally flat Riemannian manifolds with umbilic boundary.
We give a generalization of a theorem of Bôcher for the Laplace equation to a class of conformally invariant fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations. We also prove a Harnack inequality for locally Lipschitz viscosity solutions and a classification of continuous radially symmetric viscosity solutions.
The Yamabe problem concerns finding a conformal metric on a given closed Riemannian manifold so that it has constant scalar curvature. This paper concerns mainly a fully nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem and the corresponding Liouville type problem.
We establish blow-up profiles for any blowing-up sequence of solutions of general conformally invariant fully nonlinear elliptic equations on Euclidean domains. We prove that (i) the distance between blow-up points is bounded from below by a universal positive number, (ii) the solutions are very close to a single standard bubble in a universal positive distance around each blow-up point, and (iii) the heights of these bubbles are comparable by a universal factor. As an application of this result, we establish a quantitative Liouville theorem.
We will report some results concerning the Yamabe problem and the Nirenberg problem. Related topics will also be discussed. Such studies have led to new results on some conformally invariant fully nonlinear equations arising from geometry. We will also present these results which include some Liouville type theorems, Harnack type inequalities, existence and compactness of solutions to some nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem.
In this paper we show rigidity results for super-solutions to fully nonlinear elliptic conformally invariant equations on subdomains of the standard $n$-sphere $\mathbb S^n$ under suitable conditions along the boundary. We emphasize that our results do not assume concavity assumption on the fully nonlinear equations we will work with. This proves rigidity for compact connected locally conformally flat manifolds $(M,g)$ with boundary such that the eigenvalues of the Schouten tensor satisfy a fully nonlinear elliptic inequality and whose boundary is isometric to a geodesic sphere $\partial D(r)$…
We present some results on a fully nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem and a Harnack type inequality for general conformally invariant fully nonlinear second order elliptic equations.
We consider the problem of conformally deforming a metric to one with a prescribed symmetric function of the eigenvalues of the Ricci tensor, in the case of negative curvature.
We consider a nonlinear version of the Yamabe problem on locally conformally flat compact manifolds with boundary. The main technique we used is to derive boundary $C^2$ estimates directly from boundary $C^0$ estimates. In particular, the result is a generalization of the work by Escobar.
Prescribing, by conformal transformation, the kth-elementary symmetric polynomial of the Schouten tensor $P$ to be constant is a generalisation of the Yamabe problem. On compact Riemannian n-manifolds we show that, for k between and including 3 and n, this prescription equation is an Euler-Lagrange equation of some action if and only if the structure is locally conformally flat.
We prove compactness of solutions of a fully nonlinear Yamabe problem satisfying a lower Ricci curvature bound, when the manifold is not conformally diffeomorphic to the standard sphere. This allows us to prove the existence of solutions when the associated cone $Γ$ satisfies $μ^+_Γ\le 1$, which includes the $σ_k-$Yamabe problem for $k$ not smaller than half of the dimension of the manifold.
We present a conformal deformation involving a fully nonlinear equation in dimension 4, starting with positive scalar curvature. Assuming a certain conformal invariant is positive, one may deform from positive scalar curvature to a stronger condition involving the Ricci tensor. We also give a new conformally invariant condition for positivity of the Paneitz operator, which allows us to give many new examples of manifolds admitting metrics with constant $Q$-curvature.
We classify local minimizers of $\intσ_2+\oint H_2$ among all conformally flat metrics in the Euclidean $(n+1)$-ball, $4\leq n\leq 5$, for which the boundary has unit volume, subject to an ellipticity assumption. We also classify local minimizers of the analogous functional in the critical dimension $n+1=4$. If minimizers exist, this implies a fully nonlinear sharp Sobolev trace inequality. Our proof is an adaptation of the Frank--Lieb proof of the sharp Sobolev inequality, and in particular does not rely on symmetrization or Obata-type arguments.
In this paper, we prove the following two results: First, we study a class of conformally invariant operators $P$ and their related conformally invariant curvatures $Q$ on even-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. When the manifold is locally conformally flat(LCF) and compact without boundary, $Q$-curvature is naturally related to the integrand in the classical Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula, i.e., the Pfaffian curvature. For a class of even-dimensional complete LCF manifolds with integrable $Q$% -curvature, we establish a Gauss-Bonnet-Chern inequality. Second, a finiteness theorem for certain classe…
One way to generalize the boundary Yamabe problem posed by Escobar is to ask if a given metric on a compact manifold with boundary can be conformally deformed to have vanishing $σ_k$-curvature in the interior and constant $H_k$-curvature on the boundary. When restricting to the closure of the positive $k$-cone, this is a fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic boundary value problem with fully nonlinear Robin-type boundary condition. We prove a general bifurcation theorem which allows us to construct examples of compact Riemannian manifolds $(X,g)$ for which this problem admits multiple non-homoth…
We derive a priori second order estimates for fully nonlinear elliptic equations which depend on the gradients of solutions in critical ways on Hermitian manifolds. The global estimates we obtained apply to an equation arising from a conjecture by Gauduchon which extends the Calabi conjecture; this was one of the original motivations to this work. We were also motivated by the fact that there had been increasing interests in fully nonlinear pde's from complex geometry in recent years, and aimed to develop general methods to cover as wide a class of equations as possible.
In this paper, we establish second order estimates for a general class of fully nonlinear equations with linear gradient terms on compact almost Hermitian manifolds. As an application, we first prove the existence of solutions for the Monge-Ampère equation with linear gradient terms for $(n-1)$-plurisubharmonic functions, originated from Gaudochon conjecture, in the almost Hermitian setting. Second, we solve the Monge-Ampère equation and Hessian equations with linear gradient terms. Third, we give the $C^{\infty}$ a priori estimates for the deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation with supercrit…
We establish interior Lipschitz regularity for continuous viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear, conformally invariant, degenerate elliptic equations. As a by-product of our method, we also prove a weak form of the strong comparison principle, which we refer to as the principle of propagation of touching points, for operators of the form $\nabla^2 ψ+ L(x,ψ,\nabla ψ)$ which are non-decreasing in $ψ$.
In this paper we study the {\it a priori} gradient estimates for admissible solutions to Neumann boundary value problem of fully nonlinear Hessian equations on Riemannian manifolds. We firstly derive an interior gradient estimates for admissible solutions, then we obtain boundary gradient estimates based on the interior gradient estimates we have got.
In this paper we shall establish some regularity results of solutions of a class of fully nonlinear equations, with a first order term which is sub-linear. We prove local Hölder regularity of the gradient both in the interior and up to the boundary.
In this paper we consider second order fully nonlinear operators with an additive superlinear gradient term. Like in the pioneering paper of Brezis for the semilinear case, we obtain the existence of entire viscosity solutions, defined in all the space, without assuming global bounds. A uniqueness result is also obtained for special gradient terms, subject to a convexity/concavity type assumption where superlinearity is essential and has to be handled in a different way from the linear case.
We extend the Caffarelli-Świech-Winter $C^{1,α}$ regularity estimates to $L^p$-viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations in nondivergence form with superlinear growth in the gradient and unbounded coefficients. As an application, in addition to the usual $W^{2,p}$ results, we prove the existence of positive eigenvalues for proper operators with nonnegative unbounded weight, in particular for Pucci's operators with unbounded coefficients.
We prove a priori gradient bounds for classical solutions of the fully nonlinear parabolic equation $$u_{t}=F(D^2u,D u,u,x,t).$$ The domain is the torus {\mathbb{T}}^{d} of dimension $d\ge1$. Up to the price of technicalities, our work can be extended to the case of bounded domains or the case of the whole space ${\mathbb{R}}^d$. Several applications are given, including the standard porous medium equation.
We prove the optimal $W^{2, \infty }$ regularity for fully nonlinear elliptic equations with convex gradient constraints. We do not assume any regularity about the constraints; so the constraints need not be $C^1$ or strictly convex. We also show that the optimal regularity holds up to the boundary. Our approach is to show that these elliptic equations with gradient constraints are related to some fully nonlinear double obstacle problems. Then we prove the optimal $W^{2, \infty }$ regularity for the double obstacle problems. In this process, we also employ the monotonicity property for the sec…
We establish sharp geometric Holder regularity estimates for Gradient for bounded solutions of a class of fully nonlinear elliptic equations with non-homogeneous degeneracy. Such regularity estimates simplify and generalize, to some extent, earlier ones via a totally different modus operandi. Our approach is based on geometric tangential methods and makes use of a refined oscillation mechanism combined with compactness and scaling techniques. In the end, we present some connections of our findings with a variety of nonlinear geometric free boundary problems and relevant nonlinear problems in t…
We study whether the solutions of a fully nonlinear, uniformly parabolic equation with superquadratic growth in the gradient satisfy initial and homogeneous boundary conditions in the classical sense, a problem we refer to as the classical Dirichlet problem. Our main results are: the nonexistence of global-in-time solutions of this problem, depending on a specific largeness condition on the initial data, and the existence of local-in-time solutions for initial data $C^1$ up to the boundary. Global existence is know when boundary conditions are understood in the viscosity sense, what is known a…
In this paper we prove Holder regularity of the derivative of radial solutions to fully nonlinear equations when the operator is hessian, homogenous of degree 1 in the Hessian, homogenous of some degree $α>-1$ in the gradient and which is elliptic when the gradient is not null.
In this paper, we prove borderline gradient continuity of viscosity solutions to Fully nonlinear elliptic equations at the boundary of a $C^{1,\dini}$-domain. Our main result Theorem 3.1 is a sharpening of the boundary gradient estimate proved by Ma-Wang following the borderline interior gradient regularity estimates established Daskalopoulos-Kuusi-Mingione. We however mention that, differently from the approach in the interior case which depends on $W^{1,q}$ estimates, our proof is slightly more geometric and is based on compactness arguments inspired by the techniques in the fundamental work…
We propose a least squares Galerkin based gradient recovery to approximate Dirichlet problems for strong solutions of linear elliptic problems in nondivergence form and corresponding apriori and aposteriori error bounds. This approach is used to tackle fully nonlinear elliptic problems, e.g., Monge-Ampère, Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman, using the smooth (vanilla) and the semismooth Newton linearization. We discuss numerical results, including adaptive methods based on the aposteriori error indicators.
The validity of the comparison principle in variable coefficient fully nonlinear gradient free potential theory is examined and then used to prove the comparison principle for fully nonlinear partial differential equations which determine a suitable potential theory. The approach combines the notions of proper elliptic branches inspired by Krylov (Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 1995) with the monotonicity-duality method initiated by Harvey and Lawson (Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 2009). In the variable coefficient nonlinear potential theory, a special role is played by the Hausdorff continuity of the prope…
We consider fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations with quadratic growth in the gradient, such as $$ -F(x,u,Du,D^2u) =λc(x)u+\langle M(x)D u, D u \rangle +h(x) $$ in a bounded domain with a Dirichlet boundary condition, here $λ\in\mathbb{R}$, $c,\, h \in L^p(Ω)$, $p>n\geq 1$, $c\gneqq 0$ and the matrix $M$ satisfies $0<μ_1 I\leq M\leq μ_2 I$. Recently this problem was studied in the "coercive" case $λc\le0$, where uniqueness of solutions can be expected, and it was conjectured that the solution set is more complex for noncoercive equations. This conjecture was verified in 2015 by Arcoya,…
We examine $L^p$-viscosity solutions to fully nonlinear elliptic equations with bounded-measurable ingredients. By considering $p_0<p<d$, we focus on gradient-regularity estimates stemming from nonlinear potentials. We find conditions for local Lipschitz-continuity of the solutions and continuity of the gradient. We briefly survey recent breakthroughs in regularity theory arising from (nonlinear) potential estimates. Our findings follow from -- and are inspired by -- fundamental facts in the theory of $L^p$-viscosity solutions, and results in the work of Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Tuomo Kuusi an…
We propose fully discrete, implicit-in-time finite-volume schemes for a general family of non-linear and non-local Fokker-Planck equations with a gradient-flow structure, usually known as aggregation-diffusion equations, in any dimension. The schemes enjoy the positivity-preservation and energy-dissipation properties, essential for their practical use. The first-order scheme verifies these properties unconditionally for general non-linear diffusions and interaction potentials, while the second-order scheme does so provided a CFL condition holds. Sweeping dimensional splitting permits the effic…
We consider the problem of finding $λ\in \mathbb{R}$ and a function $u:\mathbb{R}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ that satisfy the PDE $$ \max\left\{λ+ F(D^2u) -f(x),H(Du)\right\}=0, \quad x\in \mathbb{R}^n. $$ Here $F$ is elliptic, positively homogeneous and superadditive, $f$ is convex and superlinear, and $H$ is typically assumed to be convex. Examples of this type of PDE arise in the theory of singular ergodic control. We show that there is a unique $λ^*$ for which the above equation has a solution $u$ with appropriate growth as $|x|\rightarrow \infty$. Moreover, associated to $λ^*$ is a convex so…
We obtain new oscillation and gradient bounds for the viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations where the Hamiltonian is a sum of a sublinear and a superlinear part in the sense of Barles and Souganidis (2001). We use these bounds to study the asymptotic behavior of weakly coupled systems of fully nonlinear parabolic equations. Our results apply to some "asymmetric systems" where some equations contain a sublinear Hamiltonian whereas the others contain a superlinear one. Moreover, we can deal with some particular case of systems containing some degenerate equations u…