Singularities of the Minkowski set and affine equidistants for a curve and a surface

Generic singularities of envelopes of families of chords and bifurcations of affine equidistants defined by a pair of a curve and a surface in R³ are classified. The chords join pairs of points of the curve and the surface such that the tangent line to the curve is parallel to the tangent plane to the surface. The classification contains singularities of stable Lagrange and Legendre projections, boundary singularities and some less known classes appearing at the points of the surface and the curve themselves.     

Variation homological diagrams,¶and corner singularities

We describe the general homological framework (the variation arrays and variation homological diagrams) in which can be studied hypersurface isolated singularities as well as boundary singularities and corner singularities from the point of view of duality. We then show that any corner singularity is extension, in a sense which is defined, of the corner singularities of less dimension on which it is built. This framework is also used to rewrite Thom–Sebastiani type properties for isolated singularities and to establish them for boundary singularities. Received: 27 June 2000 / Revised version: 18 October 2000     

Topological stability through extremely tame retractions

Suppose that F:(Rn×Rd,0)→(Rp×Rd,0) is a smoothly stable, Rd-level preserving germ which unfolds f:(Rn,0)→(Rp,0); then f is smoothly stable if and only if we can find a pair of smooth retractions r:(Rn+d,0)→(Rn,0) and s:(Rp+d,0)→(Rp,0) such that f°r=s°F. Unfortunately, we do not know whether f will be topologically stable if we can find a pair of continuous retractions r and s.The class of extremely tame (E-tame) retractions, introduced by du Plessis and Wall, are defined by their nice geometric properties, which are sufficient to ensure that f is topologically stable.In this article, we present the E-tame retractions and their relation with topological stability, survey recent results by the author concerning their construction, and illustrate the use of our techniques by constructing E-tame retractions for certain germs belonging to the E- and Z-series of singularities.     

Maskit combinations of Poincaré-Einstein metrics

We establish a boundary connected sum theorem for asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein metrics, and also show that if the two metrics have scalar positive conformal infinities, then the same is true for this boundary join. This construction is also extended to spaces with a finite number of interior conic singularities, and as a result we show that any 3-manifold which is a finite connected sum of quotients of S³ and S²×S¹ bounds such a space (with conic singularities); putatively, any 3-manifold admitting a metric of positive scalar curvature is of this form.     

Topological equivalence of complex polynomials

The following numerical control over the topological equivalence is proved: two complex polynomials in n≠3 variables and with isolated singularities are topologically equivalent if one deforms into the other by a continuous family of polynomial functions f_s:Cⁿ→C with isolated singularities such that the degree, the number of vanishing cycles and the number of atypical values are constant in the family.     

Nikolai Nikolaevich Krasovskii

We consider the classification of germs of functions up to a nonstandard equivalence relation similar to the quasi boundary equivalence and quasi equivalence of projections recently introduced by the second author. In fact, it is more rough than the classification of functions with respect to the group of diffeomorphisms preserving a corner (that is, a union of a pair of transversal hypersurfaces). We present the list of all simple classes and discuss its relation to the singularities of Lagrangian projections with corners. Also, we describe the bifurcation diagrams and caustics of simple quasi corner singularities.     

Geometry of curves and surfaces through the contact map

We introduce a new approach to the study of affine equidistants and centre symmetry sets via a family of maps obtained by reflexion in the midpoints of chords of a submanifold of affine space. We apply this to surfaces in R³, previously studied by Giblin and Zakalyukin, and then apply the same ideas to surfaces in R⁴, elucidating some of the connexions between their geometry and the family of reflexion maps. We also point out some connexions with symplectic topology.     

Another approach to the heat flow for Plateau problem

For the minimal surfaces in Rⁿ with Plateau boundary condition and establish the global existence and uniqueness of the flow as well as the continuous dependence of the initial datum.     

Local mesh refinement for the discretization of Neumann boundary control problems on polyhedra

This paper deals with optimal control problems constrained by linear elliptic partial differential equations. The case where the right‐hand side of the Neumann boundary is controlled, is studied. The variational discretization concept for these problems is applied, and discretization error estimates are derived. On polyhedral domains, one has to deal with edge and corner singularities, which reduce the convergence rate of the discrete solutions, that is, one cannot expect convergence order two for linear finite elements on quasi‐uniform meshes in general. As a remedy, a local mesh refinement strategy is presented, and a priori bounds for the refinement parameters are derived such that convergence with optimal rate is guaranteed. As a by‐product, finite element error estimates in the H¹(Ω)‐norm, L²(Ω)‐norm and L²(Γ)‐norm for the boundary value problem are obtained, where the latter one turned out to be the main challenge. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generic bifurcations of framed curves in a space form and their envelopes

The generic singularities and bifurcations are classified for one-parameter families of curves with frames in the space forms En+1,Sn+1,Hn+1. Two kinds of frames are considered; adapted frames and osculating frames. In particular, we give the classification results on the singularities of envelopes associated to framed curves.The associated envelopes and their singularities are classified. characterised in term of geometric invariants of framed curves. We apply to the global problem of framed curves and to the extension problem of surfaces with boundaries in three space. generalising the results obtained in Ishikawa (2010) [12].     

A mixed boundary value problem for a singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equation in an L-shaped domain

A mixed boundary value problem for a singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equation in an L-shaped domain is considered for when the solution has singularities at the corners of the domain. The densification of the Shishkin mesh near the inner corner where different boundary conditions meet is such that the solution obtained by the classical five-point difference scheme converges to the solution of the initial problem in the mesh norm L _?? ^h uniformly with respect to the small parameter with almost second order, i.e., as a smooth solution. Numerical analysis confirms the theoretical result.     

The hp-Version of the Boundary Element Method in ℝ3 The Basic Approximation Results

This paper deals with the basic approximation properties of the h–p version of the boundary element method (BEM) in ℝ³. We extend the results on the exponential convergence of the h–p version of the boundary element method on geometric meshes from problems in polygonal domains to problems in polyhedral domains. In 2D elliptic boundary value problems the solutions have only corner singularities whereas in 3D problems they contain additional edge and corner-edge singularities. The solutions of the corresponding boundary integral equations inherit those singularities. The detailed investigations in our analysis take care of the various types of those singularities. While edge singularities can be analysed using standard one-dimensional approximation results the corner-edge singularities demand a new analysis. © 1997 by B. G. Teubner Stuttgart–John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Asymptotics of the porous media equation via Sobolev inequalities

Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold without boundary. Consider the porous media equation , u(0)=u₀∈L^q, ? being the Laplace-Beltrami operator. Then, if q?2∨(m-1), the associated evolution is L^q-L^∞ regularizing at any time t>0 and the bound ‖u(t)‖_∞?C(u₀)/t^β holds for t<1 for suitable explicit C(u₀),γ. For large t it is shown that, for general initial data, u(t) approaches its time-independent mean with quantitative bounds on the rate of convergence. Similar bounds are valid when the manifold is not compact, but u(t) approaches u≡0 with different asymptotics. The case of manifolds with boundary and homogeneous Dirichlet, or Neumann, boundary conditions, is treated as well. The proof stems from a new connection between logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and the contractivity properties of the nonlinear evolutions considered, and is therefore applicable to a more abstract setting.     

Isomorphic homotopy groups of certain regular sets and their images

In this paper we study the relation between the topology of the set R(f) of regular points and the topology of its image f(R(f)), for some special maps acting between two manifolds M and N. The results are oriented towards negative examples for the inverse problem of deciding whether a given closed subset of the source manifold is a critical set.     

Blowing up boundary conditions for a nonlocal nonlinear diffusion equation in several space dimensions

We analyze boundary value problems prescribing Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions for a nonlocal nonlinear diffusion operator which is analogous to the porous medium equation in a bounded smooth domain Ω∈R^N with N≥1. First, we prove existence and uniqueness of solutions and the validity of a comparison principle for these problems. Next, we impose boundary data that blow up in finite time and study the behavior of the solutions.     

Inverse problems and index formulae for Dirac operators

We consider a Dirac-type operator DP on a vector bundle V over a compact Riemannian manifold (M,g) with a non-empty boundary. The operator DP is specified by a boundary condition P(u_|∂M)=0 where P is a projector which may be a non-local, i.e., a pseudodifferential operator. We assume the existence of a chirality operator which decomposes L²(M,V) into two orthogonal subspaces X₊⊕X₋. Under certain conditions, the operator DP restricted to X₊ and X₋ defines a pair of Fredholm operators which maps X₊→X₋ and X₋→X₊ correspondingly, giving rise to a superstructure on V. In this paper we consider the questions of determining the index of DP and the reconstruction of and DP from the boundary data on ∂M. The data used is either the Cauchy data, i.e., the restrictions to ∂M×R₊ of the solutions to the hyperbolic Dirac equation, or the boundary spectral data, i.e., the set of the eigenvalues and the boundary values of the eigenfunctions of DP. We obtain formulae for the index and prove uniqueness results for the inverse boundary value problems. We apply the obtained results to the classical Dirac-type operator in M×C⁴, M⊂R³.     

Stabilizers and orbits of smooth functions

Let be a smooth function such that f(0)=0. We give a condition J(id) on f when for arbitrary preserving orientation diffeomorphism such that ?(0)=0 the function ?○f is right equivalent to f, i.e. there exists a diffeomorphism such that ?○f=f○h at 0∈Rm. The requirement is that f belongs to its Jacobi ideal. This property is rather general: it is invariant with respect to the stable equivalence of singularities, and holds for non-degenerated, simple, and many other singularities.We also globalize this result as follows. Let M be a smooth compact manifold, a surjective smooth function, DM the group of diffeomorphisms of M, and the group of diffeomorphisms of R that have compact support and leave [0,1] invariant. There are two natural right and left-right actions of DM and on C^∞(M,R). Let SM(f), SMR(f), OM(f), and OMR(f) be the corresponding stabilizers and orbits of f with respect to these actions. We prove that if f satisfies J(id) at each critical point and has additional mild properties, then the following homotopy equivalences hold: SM(f)≈SMR(f) and OM(f)≈OMR(f). Similar results are obtained for smooth mappings M→S¹.     

Local structure of ideal shapes of knots

Relatively extremal knots are the relative minima of the ropelength functional in the C¹ topology. They are the relative maxima of the thickness (normal injectivity radius) functional on the set of curves of fixed length, and they include the ideal knots. We prove that a C1,1 relatively extremal knot in Rn either has constant maximal (generalized) curvature, or its thickness is equal to half of the double critical self distance. This local result also applies to the links. Our main approach is to show that the shortest curves with bounded curvature and C¹ boundary conditions in Rn contain CLC (circle-line-circle) curves, if they do not have constant maximal curvature.     

Pullback attractors for a semilinear heat equation on time-varying domains

The existence of a pullback attractor is established for the nonautonomous dynamical system generated by the weak solutions of a semilinear heat equation on time-varying domains with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. It is assumed that the spatial domains Ot in RN are obtained from a bounded base domain O by a C²-diffeomorphism, which is continuously differentiable in the time variable, and are contained, in the past, in a common bounded domain.