Drift transforms and Green function estimates for discontinuous processes

In this paper, we consider Girsanov transforms of pure jump type for discontinuous Markov processes. We show that, under some quite natural conditions, the Green functions of the Girsanov transformed process are comparable to those of the original process. As an application of the general results, the drift transform of symmetric stable processes is studied in detail. In particular, we show that the relativistic α-stable process in a bounded C^1,1-smooth open set D can be obtained from symmetric α-stable process in D through a combination of a pure jump Girsanov transform and a Feynman-Kac transform. From this, we deduce that the Green functions for these two processes in D are comparable.     

Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

Diffusing particles with electrostatic repulsion

Summary. We study a diffusion model of an interacting particles system with general drift and diffusion coefficients, and electrostatic inter-particles repulsion. More precisely, the finite particle system is shown to be well defined thanks to recent results on multivalued stochastic differential equations (see [2]), and then we consider the behaviour of this system when the number of particles goes to infinity (through the empirical measure process). In the particular case of affine drift and constant diffusion coefficient, we prove that a limiting measure-valued process exists and is the unique solution of a deterministic PDE. Our treatment of the convergence problem (as ) is partly similar to that of T. Chan [3] and L.C.G. Rogers - Z. Shi [5], except we consider here a more general case allowing collisions between particles, which leads to a second-order limiting PDE. Received: 5 August 1996 / In revised form: 17 October 1996     

A note on minimization problems and multistep methods

Summary. We use the qualitative properties of the solution flow of the gradient equation to compute a local minimum of a real-valued function . Under the regularity assumption of all equilibria we show a convergence result for bounded trajectories of a consistent, strictly stable linear multistep method applied to the gradient equation. Moreover, we compare the asymptotic features of the numerical and the exact solutions as done by Humphries, Stuart (1994) and Schropp (1995) for one-step methods. In the case of -stable formulae this leads to an efficient solver for stiff minimization problems. Received July 10, 1995 / Revised version received June 27, 1996     

Vector potential theory on nonsmooth domains in R<Superscript>3</Superscript> and applications to electromagnetic scattering

We study boundary value problems for the time-harmonic form of the Maxwell equations, as well as for other related systems of equations, on arbitrary Lipschitz domains in the three-dimensional Euclidean space. The main goal is to develop the corresponding theory for L^p-integrable bounday data for optimal values of p's. We also discuss a number of relevant applications in electromagnetic scattering.     

Strong approximation ofGSBV functions by piecewise smooth functions

Let Ω be an open and bounded subset ofR ⁿ with locally Lipschitz boundary. We prove that the functionsv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) whose jump setS _vis essentially closed and polyhedral and which are of classW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m) for every integerk are strongly dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), in the sense that every functionu inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) is approximated inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) by a sequence of functions {v _k{_j∈N with the described regularity such that the approximate gradients ∇v _jconverge inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) to the approximate gradient ∇u and the (n−1)-dimensional measure of the jump setsS _{v j} converges to the (n−1)-dimensional measure ofS _u. The structure ofS _v can be further improved in casep≤2.

---

Sunto Sia Ω un aperto limitato diR ⁿ con frontiera localmente Lipschitziana. In questo lavoro si dimostra che le funzioniv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) con insieme di saltoS _v essenzialmente chiuso e poliedrale che sono di classeW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m ) per ogni interok sono fortemente dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), nel senso che ogni funzioneu∈GSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) è approssimata inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) da una successione di funzioni {v _j}_j∈N con la regolaritá descritta tali che i gradienti approssimati ∇v _jconvergono inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) al gradiente approssimato ∇u e la misura (n−1)-dimensionale degli insiemi di saltoS _{v j}converge alla misura (n−1)-dimensionale diS _u. La struttura diS _vpuó essere migliorata nel caso in cuip≤2.

     

The Jacobian and the Ginzburg-Landau energy

We study the Ginzburg-Landau functional for , where U is a bounded, open subset of . We show that if a sequence of functions satisfies , then their Jacobians are precompact in the dual of for every . Moreover, any limiting measure is a sum of point masses. We also characterize the -limit of the functionals , in terms of the function space B2V introduced by the authors in [16,17]: we show that I(u) is finite if and only if , and for is equal to the total variation of the Jacobian measure Ju. When the domain U has dimension greater than two, we prove if then the Jacobians are again precompact in for all , and moreover we show that any limiting measure must be integer multiplicity rectifiable. We also show that the total variation of the Jacobian measure is a lower bound for the limit of the Ginzburg-Landau functional. Received: 15 December 2000 / Accepted: 23 January 2001 / Published online: 25 June 2001     

To the spectral theory of Krein systems

We consider the Krein systems. For the set of Stummel class coefficients, we establish the criterion in terms of these coefficients for the system to satisfy the Szegö-type estimate on the spectral measure.