On general boundary-value problems for nonlinear elliptic equations of second order in a multiply connected plane domain

This paper deals with some general irregular oblique derivative problems for nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations of second order in a multiply connected plane domain. Firstly, we state the well-posedness of a new set of modified boundary conditions. Secondly, we verify the existence of solutions of the modified boundary-value problem for harmonic functions, and then prove the solvability of the modified problem for nonlinear elliptic equations, which includes the original boundary-value problem (i.e. boundary conditions without involving undertermined functions data). Here, mainly, the location of the zeros of analytic functions, a priori estimates for solutions and the continuity method are used in deriving all these results. Furthermore, the present approach and setting seems to be new and different from what has been employed before.The research was partially supported by a UPGC Grant of Hong Kong.     

A priori estimate for non-uniform elliptic equations

A priori estimate for non-uniform elliptic equations with periodic boundary conditions is concerned. The domain considered consists of two sub-regions, a connected high permeability region and a disconnected matrix block region with low permeability. Let ? denote the size ratio of one matrix block to the whole domain. It is shown that in the connected high permeability sub-region, the Hölder and the Lipschitz estimates of the non-uniform elliptic solutions are bounded uniformly in ?. But Hölder gradient estimate and Lp estimate of the second order derivatives of the solutions in general are not bounded uniformly in ?.     

Gradient regularity for elliptic equations in the Heisenberg group

We give dimension-free regularity conditions for a class of possibly degenerate sub-elliptic equations in the Heisenberg group exhibiting super-quadratic growth in the horizontal gradient; this solves an issue raised in [J.J. Manfredi, G. Mingione, Regularity results for quasilinear elliptic equations in the Heisenberg group, Math. Ann. 339 (2007) 485-544], where only dimension dependent bounds for the growth exponent are given. We also obtain explicit a priori local regularity estimates, and cover the case of the horizontal p-Laplacean operator, extending some regularity proven in [A. Domokos, J.J. Manfredi, C1,α-regularity for p-harmonic functions in the Heisenberg group for p near 2, in: Contemp. Math., vol. 370, 2005, pp. 17-23]. In turn, using some recent techniques of Caffarelli and Peral [L. Caffarelli, I. Peral, On W1,p estimates for elliptic equations in divergence form, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 51 (1998) 1-21], the a priori estimates found are shown to imply the suitable local Calderón-Zygmund theory for the related class of non-homogeneous, possibly degenerate equations involving discontinuous coefficients. These last results extend to the sub-elliptic setting a few classical non-linear Euclidean results [T. Iwaniec, Projections onto gradient fields and Lp-estimates for degenerated elliptic operators, Studia Math. 75 (1983) 293-312; E. DiBenedetto, J.J. Manfredi, On the higher integrability of the gradient of weak solutions of certain degenerate elliptic systems, Amer. J. Math. 115 (1993) 1107-1134], and to the non-linear case estimates of the same nature that were available in the sub-elliptic setting only for solutions to linear equations.     

Guaranteed error bounds for finite element approximations of noncoercive elliptic problems and their applications

In this paper, we discuss with guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates of finite element approximations for not necessarily coercive linear second order Dirichlet problems. Here, ‘guaranteed’ means we can get the error bounds in which all constants included are explicitly given or represented as a numerically computable form. Using the invertibility condition of concerning elliptic operator, guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates are formulated. This kind of estimates plays essential and important roles in the numerical verification of solutions for nonlinear elliptic problems. Several numerical examples that confirm the actual effectiveness of the method are presented.     

On the coupled BEM and FEM for a nonlinear exterior Dirichlet problem in R2

Summary In this paper we apply the coupling of boundary integral and finite element methods to solve a nonlinear exterior Dirichlet problem in the plane. Specifically, the boundary value problem consists of a nonlinear second order elliptic equation in divergence form in a bounded inner region, and the Laplace equation in the corresponding unbounded exterior region, in addition to appropriate boundary and transmission conditions. The main feature of the coupling method utilized here consists in the reduction of the nonlinear exterior boundary value problem to an equivalent monotone operator equation. We provide sufficient conditions for the coefficients of the nonlinear elliptic equation from which existence, uniqueness and approximation results are established. Then, we consider the case where the corresponding operator is strongly monotone and Lipschitz-continuous, and derive asymptotic error estimates for a boundary-finite element solution. We prove the unique solvability of the discrete operator equations, and based on a Strang type abstract error estimate, we show the strong convergence of the approximated solutions. Moreover, under additional regularity assumptions on the solution of the continous operator equation, the asymptotic rate of convergenceO (h) is obtained.The first author's research was partly supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Science Institute of Cornell University, by the Universidad de Concepción through the Facultad de Ciencias, Dirección de Investigación and Vicerretoria, and by FONDECYT-Chile through Project 91-386.     

Regularity for a class of strongly degenerate quasilinear operators

We prove a Harnack inequality and regularity for solutions of a quasilinear strongly degenerate elliptic equation. We assume the coefficients of the structure conditions to belong to suitable Stummel–Kato classes.     

A De Giorgi–Nash type theorem for time fractional diffusion equations

We study the regularity of weak solutions to linear time fractional diffusion equations in divergence form of arbitrary time order $\alpha \in (0,1)$ . The coefficients are merely assumed to be bounded and measurable, and they satisfy a uniform parabolicity condition. Our main result is a De Giorgi–Nash type theorem, which gives an interior Hölder estimate for bounded weak solutions in terms of the data and the $L_\infty $ -bound of the solution. The proof relies on new a priori estimates for time fractional problems and uses De Giorgi’s technique and the method of non-local growth lemmas, which has been introduced recently in the context of nonlocal elliptic equations involving operators like the fractional Laplacian.     

Global Regularity of Weak Solutions to Quasilinear Elliptic and Parabolic Equations with Controlled Growth

We establish global regularity for weak solutions to quasilinear divergence form elliptic and parabolic equations over Lipschitz domains with controlled growth conditions on low order terms. The leading coefficients belong to the class of BMO functions with small mean oscillations with respect to x.     

Solutions of singular elliptic equations via the oblique derivative problem

We study a class of second elliptic equations whose highest order coefficients vanish everywhere on the boundary. Under suitable conditions on the lower order coefficients, Langlais proved in 1985 that such equations have unique smooth solutions up to the boundary provided the data are smooth enough. Our goal here is to prove some Schauder estimates for these equations and to obtain results even in Lipschitz domains. In addition, we show that bounded solutions of such problems are as smooth as the data allow. A key step is to observe that smooth solutions must satisfy an oblique derivative boundary condition.     

Elliptic equations for measures on infinite dimensional spaces and applications

We introduce and study a new concept of a weak elliptic equation for measures on infinite dimensional spaces. This concept allows one to consider equations whose coefficients are not globally integrable. By using a suitably extended Lyapunov function technique, we derive a priori estimates for the solutions of such equations and prove new existence results. As an application, we consider stochastic Burgers, reaction-diffusion, and Navier-Stokes equations and investigate the elliptic equations for the corresponding invariant measures. Our general theorems yield a priori estimates and existence results for such elliptic equations. We also obtain moment estimates for Gibbs distributions and prove an existence result applicable to a wide class of models. Received: 23 January 2000 / Revised version: 4 October 2000 / Published online: 5 June 2001     

Global pointwise estimates for Green's matrix of second order elliptic systems

We establish global pointwise bounds for the Green's matrix for divergence form, second order elliptic systems in a domain under the assumption that weak solutions of the system vanishing on a portion of the boundary satisfy a certain local boundedness estimate. Moreover, we prove that such a local boundedness estimate for weak solutions of the system is equivalent to the usual global pointwise bound for the Green's matrix. In the scalar case, such an estimate is a consequence of De Giorgi-Moser-Nash theory and holds for equations with bounded measurable coefficients in arbitrary domains. In the vectorial case, one need to impose certain assumptions on the coefficients of the system as well as on domains to obtain such an estimate. We present a unified approach valid for both the scalar and vectorial cases and discuss several applications of our result.     

Numerical verifications of solutions for elliptic equations in nonconvex polygonal domains

Summary In this paper, methods for numerical verifications of solutions for elliptic equations in nonconvex polygonal domains are studied. In order to verify solutions using computer, it is necessary to determine some constants which appear in a priori error estimations. We propose some methods for determination of these constants. In numerical examples, calculating these constants for anL-shaped domain, we verify the solution of a nonlinear elliptic equation.     

Solvability in Hardy space for second order elliptic equations

We obtain a priori estimates and solvability in Hardy type space in a bounded domain of R ⁿ for second order elliptic equations with coefficients of limited smoothness. Such a result can be served as an endpoint case of the classical L ^p (1 < p < ∞) theory for second order elliptic equations. Our approach is based on a standard technique of perturbation rather than that of integral representation formula.     

On the existence of positive solutions for semilinear elliptic equations with Neumann boundary conditions

Summary We give sufficient conditions for the existence of positive solutions to some semilinear elliptic equations in unbounded Lipschitz domainsD ^d (d3), having compact boundary, with nonlinear Neumann boundary conditions on the boundary ofD. For this we use an implicit probabilistic representation, Schauder's fixed point theorem, and a recently proved Sobolev inequality forW ^1,2(D). Special cases include equations arising from the study of pattern formation in various models in mathematical biology and from problems in geometry concerning the conformal deformation of metrics.Research supported in part by NSF Grants DMS 8657483 and GER 9023335This article was processed by the authors using the style filepljourlm from Springer-Verlag.     

Elliptic systems with measurable coefficients of the type of Lamé system in three dimensions

We study the 3×3 elliptic systems ∇(a(x)∇×u)−∇(b(x)∇⋅u)=f, where the coefficients a(x) and b(x) are positive scalar functions that are measurable and bounded away from zero and infinity. We prove that weak solutions of the above system are Hölder continuous under some minimal conditions on the inhomogeneous term f. We also present some applications and discuss several related topics including estimates of the Green?s functions and the heat kernels of the above systems.     

A priori estimates, existence and non-existence of positive solutions of generalized mean curvature equations

This paper concerns a priori estimates and existence of solutions of generalized mean curvature equations with Dirichlet boundary value conditions in smooth domains. Using the blow-up method with the Liouville-type theorem of the p laplacian equation, we obtain a priori bounds and the estimates of interior gradient for all solutions. The existence of positive solutions is derived by the topological method. We also consider the non-existence of solutions by Pohozaev identities.     

Adaptive finite element methods for elliptic equations with non-smooth coefficients

Summary. We consider a second-order elliptic equation with discontinuous or anisotropic coefficients in a bounded two- or three dimensional domain, and its finite-element discretization. The aim of this paper is to prove some a priori and a posteriori error estimates in an appropriate norm, which are independent of the variation of the coefficients. Received February 5, 1999 / Published online March 16, 2000     

On the sets of boundedness of solutions for a class of degenerate nonlinear elliptic fourth-order equations with <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Superscript>1</Superscript>-data

In this article, we deal with a class of degenerate, nonlinear, elliptic fourth-order equations in divergence form with coefficients satisfying a strengthened ellipticity condition and right-hand sides of the class L ¹ depending on the unknown function. We consider the Dirichlet problem for equations of the given class and prove the existence of solutions of this problem bounded on the sets where the behavior of the data of the problem and the weighted functions involved is sufficiently regular. __________ Translated from Fundamentalnaya i Prikladnaya Matematika, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 99–112, 2006.     

Nonexistence of positive weak solutions of elliptic inequalities

In this paper we give sufficient conditions for the nonexistence of positive entire weak solutions of coercive and anticoercive elliptic inequalities, both of the p$p$-Laplacian and of the mean curvature type, depending also on u$u$ and x$x$ inside the divergence term, while a gradient factor is included on the right-hand side. In particular, to prove our theorems we use a technique developed by Mitidieri and Pohozaev in [E. Mitidieri, S.I. Pohozaev, A priori estimates and the absence of solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations and inequalities, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math., 234 (2001) 1–362], which relies on the method of test functions without using comparison and maximum principles. Their approach is essentially based first on a priori estimates and on the derivation of an asymptotics for the a priori estimate. Finally nonexistence of a solution is proved by contradiction.     

W m,2 -Fehlerabschätzungen für Galerkin-Näherungen schwach elliptischer quasilinearer Randwertprobleme 2m-ter Ordnung

Summary For weak elliptic quasilinear boundary value problems of order 2m inn dimensionsW ^m,2 -error estimates for the Galerkin method are established, in whichL -norms of certain derivatives of the Galerkin approximations still occur. The order of these derivatives depends on several conditions on the coefficients of the differential operator. With the help of appropriate a priori bounds for the discrete solutions asymptotic error estimates for the finite element method may be obtained from this. This procedure yields quasioptimal results in several cases. Finally some examples are discussed.