Beyond the Trudinger-Moser supremum

Let Ω be a bounded, smooth domain in ${\mathbb{R}^2}$ . We consider the functional $$I(u) = \int_\Omega e^{u^2}\,dx$$ in the supercritical Trudinger-Moser regime, i.e. for ${\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^2dx > 4\pi}$ . More precisely, we are looking for critical points of I(u) in the class of functions ${u \in H_0^1 (\Omega )}$ such that ${\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^2 \, dx = 4\, \pi \, k\, (1+\alpha)}$ , for small α > 0. In particular, we prove the existence of 1-peak critical points of I(u) with ${\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^2dx = 4\pi(1 + \alpha)}$ for any bounded domain Ω, 2-peak critical points with ${\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^2dx = 8\pi(1 + \alpha)}$ for non-simply connected domains Ω, and k-peak critical points with ${\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^2 dx = 4k \pi(1 + \alpha)}$ if Ω is an annulus.     

Isolated boundary singularities of semilinear elliptic equations

Given a smooth domain ${\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N}$ such that ${0 \in \partial\Omega}$ and given a nonnegative smooth function ?? on ???, we study the behavior near 0 of positive solutions of ???u?=?u ^q in ?? such that u =? ?? on ???\{0}. We prove that if ${\frac{N+1}{N-1} < q < \frac{N+2}{N-2}}$ , then ${u(x)\leq C |x|^{-\frac{2}{q-1}}}$ and we compute the limit of ${|x|^{\frac{2}{q-1}} u(x)}$ as x ?? 0. We also investigate the case ${q= \frac{N+1}{N-1}}$ . The proofs rely on the existence and uniqueness of solutions of related equations on spherical domains.     

Existence of semiclassical states for a quasilinear Schrödinger equation with critical exponent in {\mathbb{R}^N}

We consider the following perturbed version of quasilinear Schrödinger equation $$\begin{array}{lll}-\varepsilon^2\Delta u +V(x)u-\varepsilon^2\Delta (u^2)u=h(x,u)u+K(x)|u|^{22^*-2}u\end{array}$$ in ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ , where N ≥ 3, 22* = 4N/(N ? 2), V(x) is a nonnegative potential, and K(x) is a bounded positive function. Using minimax methods, we show that this equation has at least one positive solution provided that ${\varepsilon \leq \mathcal{E}}$ ; for any ${m\in\mathbb{N}}$ , it has m pairs of solutions if ${\varepsilon \leq \mathcal{E}_m}$ , where ${\mathcal{E}}$ and ${\mathcal{E}_m}$ are sufficiently small positive numbers. Moreover, these solutions ${u_\varepsilon \to 0}$ in ${H^1(\mathbb{R}^N)}$ as ${\varepsilon \to 0}$ .     

On uniformly bounded spherical functions in Hilbert space

Let G be a commutative group, written additively, with a neutral element 0, and let K be a finite group. Suppose that K acts on G via group automorphisms ${G \ni a \mapsto ka \in G}$ , ${k \in K}$ . Let ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ be a complex Hilbert space and let ${{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ . A mapping ${u \colon G \to {\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ is termed a K-spherical function if it satisfies (1) ${|K|^{-1} \sum_{k\in K} u (a+kb)=u (a) u (b)}$ for any ${a,b\in G}$ , where |K| denotes the cardinality of K, and (2) ${u (0) = {\rm id}_{\mathfrak {H}},}$ where ${{\rm id}_{\mathfrak {H}}}$ designates the identity operator on ${{\mathfrak{H}}}$ . The main result of the paper is that for each K-spherical function ${u \colon G \to {\mathcal {L}}({\mathfrak {H}})}$ such that ${\| u \|_{\infty} = \sup_{a\in G} \| u (a)\|_{{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})} < \infty,}$ there is an invertible operator S in ${{\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ with ${\| S \| \, \| S^{-1}\| \leq |K| \, \| u \|_{\infty}^2}$ such that the K-spherical function ${{\tilde{u}} \colon G \to {\mathcal L}({\mathfrak{H}})}$ defined by ${{\tilde{u}}(a) = S u (a) S^{-1},\,a \in G,}$ satisfies ${{\tilde{u}}(-a) = {\tilde{u}}(a)^*}$ for each ${a \in G}$ . It is shown that this last condition is equivalent to insisting that ${{\tilde{u}}(a)}$ be normal for each ${a \in G}$ .     

Blow-up rates and uniqueness of large solutions for elliptic equations with nonlinear gradient term and singular or degenerate weights

This paper deals with the blow-up rate and uniqueness of large solutions of the elliptic equation ${\Delta u = b(x)f(u)+c(x)g(u)|\nabla u|^q}$ in ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N}$ , where q > 0, f(u) and g(u) are regularly varying functions at infinity, and the weight functions ${b(x),\,c(x) \in C^\alpha(\Omega,\,\mathbb{R}^+)}$ , 0 < α < 1, may be singular or degenerate on the boundary ${\partial\Omega}$ . Combining the regular variation theoretic approach of Cîrstea–R?dulescu and the systematic approach of Bandle–Giarrusso, we are able to improve and generalize most of the previously available results in the literature.     

Continuity of solutions of a problem in the calculus of variations

We study the problem of minimizing ${\int_{\Omega} L(x,u(x),Du(x))\,{\rm d}x}$ over the functions ${u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega)}$ that assume given boundary values ${\phi}$ on ???. We assume that L(x, u, Du)?=?F(Du)?+?G(x, u) and that F is convex. We prove that if ${\phi}$ is continuous and ?? is convex, then any minimum u is continuous on the closure of ??. When ?? is not convex, the result holds true if F(Du)?=?f(|Du|). Moreover, if ${\phi}$ is Lipschitz continuous, then u is H?lder continuous.     

On functions whose symmetric part of gradient agree and a generalization of Reshetnyak’s compactness theorem

We consider the following question: Given a connected open domain ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n}$ , suppose ${u, v : \Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^n}$ with det ${(\nabla u) > 0}$ , det ${(\nabla v) > 0}$ a.e. are such that ${\nabla u^T(x)\nabla u(x) = \nabla v(x)^T \nabla v(x)}$ a.e. , does this imply a global relation of the form ${\nabla v(x) = R\nabla u(x)}$ a.e. in Ω where ${R \in SO(n)}$ ? If u, v are C ¹ it is an exercise to see this true, if ${u, v\in W^{1,1}}$ we show this is false. In Theorem 1 we prove this question has a positive answer if ${v \in W^{1,1}}$ and ${u \in W^{1,n}}$ is a mapping of L ^p integrable dilatation for p > n ? 1. These conditions are sharp in two dimensions and this result represents a generalization of the corollary to Liouville’s theorem that states that the differential inclusion ${\nabla u \in SO(n)}$ can only be satisfied by an affine mapping. Liouville’s corollary for rotations has been generalized by Reshetnyak who proved convergence of gradients to a fixed rotation for any weakly converging sequence ${v_k \in W^{1,1}}$ for which $$\int \limits_{\Omega} {\rm dist}(\nabla v_k, SO(n))dz \rightarrow 0 \, {\rm as} \, k \rightarrow \infty.$$ Let S(·) denote the (multiplicative) symmetric part of a matrix. In Theorem 3 we prove an analogous result to Theorem 1 for any pair of weakly converging sequences ${v_k \in W^{1,p}}$ and ${u_k \in W^{1,\frac{p(n-1)}{p-1}}}$ (where ${p \in [1, n]}$ and the sequence (u _k ) has its dilatation pointwise bounded above by an L ^r integrable function, r > n ? 1) that satisfy ${\int_{\Omega} |S(\nabla u_k) - S(\nabla v_k)|^p dz \rightarrow 0}$ as k → ∞ and for which the sign of the det ${(\nabla v_k)}$ tends to 1 in L ¹. This result contains Reshetnyak’s theorem as the special case (u _k ) ≡ Id, p = 1.     

Quenched to annealed transition in the parabolic Anderson problem

We study limit behavior for sums of the form $\frac{1}{|\Lambda_{L|}}\sum_{x\in \Lambda_{L}}u(t,x),$ where the field $\Lambda_L=\left\{x\in {\bf{Z^d}}:|x|\le L\right\}$ is composed of solutions of the parabolic Anderson equation $$u(t,x) = 1 + \kappa \mathop{\int}_{0}^{t} \Delta u(s,x){\rm d}s + \mathop{\int}_{0}^{t}u(s,x)\partial B_{x}(s). $$ The index set is a box in Z ^d , namely $\Lambda_{L} = \left\{x\in {\bf Z}^{\bf d} : |x| \leq L\right\}$ and L = L(t) is a nondecreasing function $L : [0,\infty)\rightarrow {\bf R}^{+}. $ We identify two critical parameters $\eta(1) < \eta(2)$ such that for $\gamma > \eta(1)$ and L(t) = e^{γ t} , the sums $\frac{1}{|\Lambda_L|}\sum_{x\in \Lambda_L}u(t,x)$ satisfy a law of large numbers, or put another way, they exhibit annealed behavior. For $\gamma > \eta(2)$ and L(t) = e^{γ t} , one has $\sum_{x\in \Lambda_L}u(t,x)$ when properly normalized and centered satisfies a central limit theorem. For subexponential scales, that is when $\lim_{t \rightarrow \infty} \frac{1}{t}\ln L(t) = 0,$ quenched asymptotics occur. That means $\lim_{t\rightarrow \infty}\frac{1}{t}\ln\left (\frac{1}{|\Lambda_L|}\sum_{x\in \Lambda_L}u(t,x)\right) = \gamma(\kappa),$ where $\gamma(\kappa)$ is the almost sure Lyapunov exponent, i.e. $\lim_{t\rightarrow \infty}\frac{1}{t}\ln u(t,x)= \gamma(\kappa).$ We also examine the behavior of $\frac{1}{|\Lambda_L|}\sum_{x\in \Lambda_L}u(t,x)$ for L = e ^{γ t} with γ in the transition range $(0,\eta(1))$      

Biased tug-of-war, the biased infinity Laplacian, and comparison with exponential cones

We prove that if ${U\subset \mathbb {R}^n}$ is an open domain whose closure ${\overline U}$ is compact in the path metric, and F is a Lipschitz function on ?U, then for each ${\beta \in \mathbb {R}}$ there exists a unique viscosity solution to the β-biased infinity Laplacian equation $$\beta |\nabla u| + \Delta_\infty u=0$$ on U that extends F, where ${\Delta_\infty u= |\nabla u|^{-2} \sum_{i,j} u_{x_i}u_{x_ix_j} u_{x_j}}$ . In the proof, we extend the tug-of-war ideas of Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson, and define the β-biased ${\epsilon}$ -game as follows. The starting position is ${x_0 \in U}$ . At the kth step the two players toss a suitably biased coin (in our key example, player I wins with odds of ${\exp(\beta\epsilon)}$ to 1), and the winner chooses x _k with ${d(x_k,x_{k-1}) < \epsilon}$ . The game ends when ${x_k \in \partial U}$ , and player II pays the amount F(x _k ) to player I. We prove that the value ${u^{\epsilon}(x_0)}$ of this game exists, and that ${\|u^\epsilon - u\|_\infty \to 0}$ as ${\epsilon \to 0}$ , where u is the unique extension of F to ${\overline{U}}$ that satisfies comparison with β-exponential cones. Comparison with exponential cones is a notion that we introduce here, and generalizing a theorem of Crandall, Evans and Gariepy regarding comparison with linear cones, we show that a continuous function satisfies comparison with β-exponential cones if and only if it is a viscosity solution to the β-biased infinity Laplacian equation.     

Infinitely many solutions for an elliptic problem involving critical Sobolev growth and Hardy potential

In this paper, we will prove the existence of infinitely many solutions for the following elliptic problem with critical Sobolev growth and a Hardy potential: $$-\Delta u-\frac{\mu}{|x|^2}u = |u|^{2^{\ast}-2}u+a u\quad {\rm in}\;\Omega,\quad u=0 \quad {\rm on}\; \partial\Omega,\qquad (*)$$ under the assumptions that N ≥ 7, ${\mu\in \left[0,\frac{(N-2)^2}4-4\right)}$ and a > 0, where ${2^{\ast}=\frac{2N}{N-2}}$ , and Ω is an open bounded domain in ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ which contains the origin. To achieve this goal, we consider the following perturbed problem of (*), which is of subcritical growth, $$-\Delta u-\frac{\mu}{|x|^2}u = |u|^{2^{\ast}-2-\varepsilon_n}u+au \quad {\rm in}\,\Omega, \quad u=0 \quad {\rm on}\;\partial\Omega,\qquad(\ast\ast)_n$$ where ${\varepsilon_{n} > 0}$ is small and ${\varepsilon_n \to 0}$ as n → + ∞. By the critical point theory for the even functionals, for each fixed ${\varepsilon_{n} > 0}$ small, (**) _n has a sequence of solutions ${u_{k,\varepsilon_{n}} \in H^{1}_{0}(\Omega)}$ . We obtain the existence of infinitely many solutions for (*) by showing that as n → ∞, ${u_{k,\varepsilon_{n}}}$ converges strongly in ${H^{1}_{0}(\Omega)}$ to u _k , which must be a solution of (*). Such a convergence is obtained by applying a local Pohozaev identity to exclude the possibility of the concentration of ${\{u_{k,\varepsilon_n}\}}$ .     

Liouville Type Theorems for Elliptic Equations with Gradient Terms

In this paper we obtain Liouville type theorems for nonnegative supersolutions of the elliptic problem ${-\Delta u + b(x)|\nabla u| = c(x)u}$ in exterior domains of ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ . We show that if lim ${{\rm inf}_{x \longrightarrow \infty} 4c(x) - b(x)^2 > 0}$ then no positive supersolutions can exist, provided the coefficients b and c verify a further restriction related to the fundamental solutions of the homogeneous problem. The weights b and c are allowed to be unbounded. As an application, we also consider supersolutions to the problems ${-\Delta u + b|x|^{\lambda}|{\nabla} u| = c|x|^{\mu} u^p}$ and ${-\Delta u + be^{\lambda |x|}|\nabla u| = ce^{\mu |x|}u^p}$ , where p > 0 and λ, μ ≥ 0, and obtain nonexistence results which are shown to be optimal.     

On nonlinear elliptic equations with Hardy potential and L^{1}-data

We consider a class of nonlinear elliptic equations involving the Hardy potential and lower order terms whose simplest model is $$\begin{aligned} -\Delta u +b(|u|)|\nabla u|^{2}+\nu |u|^{s-1}u=\lambda \frac{u}{|x|^{2}}+f \end{aligned}$$ in a bounded open $\varOmega $ of $\mathbf{R }^{N}, N\ge 3,$ containing the origin, $s>\frac{N}{N-2}, \nu $ and $\lambda $ are positive real numbers. We prove that the presence of the term $\nu |u|^{s-1}u$ has an effect on the existence of solutions when $f\in L^{1}(\varOmega )$ assuming only that $b\in L^{1}(\mathbf{R })$ without any sign condition (i.e. $b(s)s\ge 0$ ).     

Rellich inequalities with weights

Let Ω be a cone in ${\mathbb {R}^{n}}$ with n ≥? 2. For every fixed ${\alpha \in \mathbb {R}}$ we find the best constant in the Rellich inequality ${\int\nolimits_{\Omega}|x|^{\alpha}|\Delta u|^{2}dx \ge C\int\nolimits_{\Omega}|x|^{\alpha-4}|u|^{2}dx}$ for ${u \in C^{2}_{c}(\overline\Omega\setminus\{0\})}$ . We also estimate the best constant for the same inequality on ${C^{2}_{c}(\Omega)}$ . Moreover we show improved Rellich inequalities with remainder terms involving logarithmic weights on cone-like domains.     

Extinction profile of the logarithmic diffusion equation

Let ${N \geq 3}$ and u be the solution of u _t = Δ log u in ${\mathbb{R}^N \times (0, T)}$ with initial value u ₀ satisfying ${B_{k_1}(x, 0) \leq u_{0} \leq B_{k_2}(x, 0)}$ for some constants k ₁ > k ₂ > 0 where ${B_k(x, t) = 2(N - 2)(T - t)_{+}^{N/(N - 2)}/(k + (T - t)_{+}^{2/(N - 2)}|x|^{2})}$ is the Barenblatt solution for the equation and ${u_0 - B_{k_0} \in L^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{N})}$ for some constant k ₀ > 0 if ${N \geq 4}$ . We give a new different proof on the uniform convergence and ${L^1(\mathbb{R}^N)}$ convergence of the rescaled function ${\tilde{u}(x, s) = (T - t)^{-N/(N - 2)}u(x/(T - t)^{-1/(N - 2)}, t), s = -{\rm log}(T - t)}$ , on ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ to the rescaled Barenblatt solution ${\tilde{B}_{k_0}(x) = 2(N - 2)/(k_0 + |x|^{2})}$ for some k ₀ > 0 as ${s \rightarrow \infty}$ . When ${N \geq 4, 0 \leq u_0(x) \leq B_{k_0}(x, 0)}$ in ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ , and ${|u_0(x) - B_{k_0}(x, 0)| \leq f \in L^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{N})}$ for some constant k ₀ > 0 and some radially symmetric function f, we also prove uniform convergence and convergence in some weighted L ¹ space in ${\mathbb{R}^N}$ of the rescaled solution ${\tilde{u}(x, s)}$ to ${\tilde{B}_{k_0}(x)}$ as ${s \rightarrow \infty}$ .     

On the Laplace equation with a supercritical nonlinear Robin boundary condition in the half-space

We study the Laplace equation in the half-space ${\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n}}$ with a nonlinear supercritical Robin boundary condition ${\frac{\partial u}{\partial\eta }+\lambda u=u\left\vert u\right\vert^{\rho-1}+f(x)}$ on ${\partial \mathbb{R}_{+}^{n}=\mathbb{R}^{n-1}}$ , where n ≥ 3 and λ ≥ 0. Existence of solutions ${u \in E_{pq}= \mathcal{D}^{1, p}(\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n}) \cap L^{q}(\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n})}$ is obtained by means of a fixed point argument for a small data $f \in {L^{d}(\mathbb{R}^{n-1})}$ . The indexes p, q are chosen for the norm ${\Vert\cdot\Vert_{E_{pq}}}$ to be invariant by scaling of the boundary problem. The solution u is positive whether f(x) > 0 a.e. ${x\in\mathbb{R}^{n-1}}$ . When f is radially symmetric, u is invariant under rotations around the axis {x _n  = 0}. Moreover, in a certain L ^q -norm, we show that solutions depend continuously on the parameter λ ≥ 0.     

On the stationary Navier–Stokes flows around a rotating body

Consider the stationary motion of an incompressible Navier–Stokes fluid around a rotating body $ \mathcal{K} = \mathbb{R}^3 \, \backslash \, {\Omega}$ which is also moving in the direction of the axis of rotation. We assume that the translational and angular velocities U, ω are constant and the external force is given by f = div F. Then the motion is described by a variant of the stationary Navier–Stokes equations on the exterior domain Ω for the unknown velocity u and pressure p, with U, ω, F being the data. We first prove the existence of at least one solution (u, p) satisfying ${\nabla u, p \in L_{3/2, \infty} (\Omega)}$ and ${u \in L_3, \infty (\Omega)}$ under the smallness condition on ${|U| + |\omega| + ||F||_{L_{3/2, \infty} (\Omega)}}$ . Then the uniqueness is shown for solutions (u, p) satisfying ${\nabla u, p \in L_{3/2, \infty} (\Omega) \cap L_{q, r} (\Omega)}$ and ${u \in L_{3, \infty} (\Omega) \cap L_{q*, r} (\Omega)}$ provided that 3/2 <? q <? 3 and ${{F \in L_{3/2, \infty} (\Omega) \cap L_{q, r} (\Omega)}}$ . Here L _q,r (Ω) denotes the well-known Lorentz space and q* =? 3q /(3 ? q) is the Sobolev exponent to q.     

Nonlinear superharmonic functions and supersolutions

Due to the lack of representation formulas for superharmonic functions associated with p-harmonic equations ${-\nabla \cdot(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u) = \mu}$ and their generalizations ${-\nabla \cdot A(x,\nabla u) = \mu}$ ,where ${A(x,\nabla u) \cdot \nabla u \approx | \nabla u |^{p}}$ , the interplay between nonlinear superharmonic functions and supersolutions is more important than in the linear case. Using the recent result of Kilpeläinen et. al., we establish sufficient and necessary conditions in terms of the Riesz measure μ that a p-superharmonic function is an ordinary weak supersolution. As an example we consider p-superharmonic solutions of the Poisson-type equation ${-\nabla \cdot A(x,\nabla u) = f(x)}$ .     

Estimates in Beurling-Helson type theorems: Multidimensional case

We consider the spaces A _p ( $\mathbb{T}^m $ ) of functions f on the m-dimensional torus $\mathbb{T}^m $ such that the sequence of Fourier coefficients $\hat f = \{ \hat f(k),k \in \mathbb{Z}^m \} $ belongs to l ^p (? ^m ), 1 ≤ p < 2. The norm on A _p ( $\mathbb{T}^m $ ) is defined by $\left\| f \right\|_{A_p (\mathbb{T}^m )} = \left\| {\hat f} \right\|_{l^p (\mathbb{Z}^m )} $ . We study the rate of growth of the norms $\left\| {e^{i\lambda \phi } } \right\|_{A_p (\mathbb{T}^m )} $ as |λ| → ∞, λ ∈ ?, for C ¹-smooth real functions φ on $\mathbb{T}^m $ (the one-dimensional case was investigated by the author earlier). The lower estimates that we obtain have direct analogs for the spaces A _p (? ^m ).     

{\mathcal{C}^{\alpha}}-regularity for a class of non-diagonal elliptic systems with p-growth

We consider weak solutions to nonlinear elliptic systems in a W ^1,p -setting which arise as Euler equations to certain variational problems. The solutions are assumed to be stationary in the sense that the differential of the variational integral vanishes with respect to variations of the dependent and independent variables. We impose new structure conditions on the coefficients which yield everywhere ${\mathcal{C}^{\alpha}}$ -regularity and global ${\mathcal{C}^{\alpha}}$ -estimates for the solutions. These structure conditions cover variational integrals like ${\int F(\nabla u)\; dx}$ with potential ${F(\nabla u):=\tilde F (Q_1(\nabla u),\ldots, Q_N(\nabla u))}$ and positively definite quadratic forms in ${\nabla u}$ defined as ${Q_i(\nabla u)=\sum_{\alpha \beta} a_i^{\alpha \beta} \nabla u^\alpha \cdot \nabla u^\beta}$ . A simple example consists in ${\tilde F(\xi_1,\xi_2):= |\xi_1|^{\frac{p}{2}} + |\xi_2|^{\frac{p}{2}}}$ or ${\tilde F(\xi_1,\xi_2):= |\xi_1|^{\frac{p}{4}}|\xi_2|^{\frac{p}{4}}}$ . Since the Q _i need not to be linearly dependent our result covers a class of nondiagonal, possibly nonmonotone elliptic systems. The proof uses a new weighted norm technique with singular weights in an L ^p -setting.