Nash equilibria on topological semilattices

A function ${u : X \to \mathbb{R}}$ defined on a partially ordered set is quasi-Leontief if, for all ${x \in X}$ , the upper level set ${\{x\prime \in X : u(x\prime) \geq u(x)\}}$ has a smallest element; such an element is an efficient point of u. An abstract game ${u_{i} : \prod^{n}_{j=1} X_j \to \mathbb{R}, i \in \{1, \ldots , n\}}$ , is a quasi-Leontief game if, for all i and all ${(x_{j})_{j \neq i} \in \prod_{j \neq i} X_{j}, u_{i}((x_{j})_{j \neq i};-) : X_{i} \to \mathbb{R}}$ is quasi-Leontief; a Nash equilibrium x* of an abstract game ${u_{i} :\prod^{n}_{j=1} X_{j} \to \mathbb{R}}$ is efficient if, for all ${i, x^{*}_{i}}$ is an efficient point of the partial function ${u_{i}((x^{*}_{j})_{j \neq i};-) : X_{i} \to \mathbb{R}}$ . We establish the existence of efficient Nash equilibria when the strategy spaces X _i are topological semilattices which are Peano continua and Lawson semilattices.     

Existence of nontrivial solutions of linear functional equations

In this paper we study the functional equation $$\sum_{i=1}^n a_i f(b_i x+c_i h)=0 \quad (x, h \in \mathbb{C})$$ where a _i , b _i , c _i are fixed complex numbers and \({f \colon \mathbb{C} \to \mathbb{C}}\) is the unknown function. We show, that if there is i such that \({b_i / c_i \neq b_j /c_j}\) holds for any \({1 \leq j \leq n,\ j \neq i}\) , the functional equation has a nonconstant solution if and only if there are field automorphisms \({\phi_1, \ldots, \phi_k}\) of \({\mathbb{C}}\) such that \({\phi_1 \cdots \phi_k}\) is a solution of the equation.     

Axiomatizability by {{\forall}{\exists}!}-sentences

A ${\forall\exists!}$ -sentence is a sentence of the form ${\forall x_{1}\cdots x_{n}\exists!y_{1}\cdots y_{m}O(\overline{x},\overline{y})}$ , where O is a quantifier-free formula, and ${\exists!}$ stands for ??there exist unique??. We prove that if ${\mathcal{C}}$ is (up to isomorphism) a finite class of finite models then ${\mathcal{C}}$ is axiomatizable by a set of ${\forall\exists!}$ -sentences if and only if ${\mathcal{C}}$ is closed under isomorphic images, ${\mathcal{C}}$ has the intersection property, and ${\mathcal{C}}$ is closed under fixed-point submodels. This result is employed to characterize the subclasses of finitely generated discriminator varieties axiomatizable by sentences of the form ${\forall\exists!\bigwedge p=q}$ .     

Phase transitions of iterated Higman-style well-partial-orderings

We elaborate Weiermann-style phase transitions for well-partial-orderings (wpo) determined by iterated finite sequences under Higman-Friedman style embedding with Gordeev’s symmetric gap condition. For every d-times iterated wpo ${\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{d}, \trianglelefteq _{d}\right)}$ in question, d >? 1, we fix a natural extension of Peano Arithmetic, ${T \supseteq \sf{PA}}$ , that proves the corresponding second-order sentence ${\sf{WPO}\left({\rm S}{\textsc{eq}}^{d}, \trianglelefteq _{d}\right) }$ . Having this we consider the following parametrized first-order slow well-partial-ordering sentence ${\sf{SWP}\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{d}, \trianglelefteq _{d}, r\right):}$ $$\left( \forall K > 0 \right) \left( \exists M > 0\right) \left( \forall x_{0},\ldots ,x_{M}\in {\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{d}\right)$$ $$\left( \left( \forall i\leq M\right) \left( \left| x_{i}\right| < K + r \left\lceil \log _{d} \left( i+1\right) \right\rceil \right)\rightarrow \left( \exists i < j \leq M \right) \left(x_{i} \trianglelefteq _{d} x_{j}\right) \right)$$ for a natural additive Seq ^d -norm |·| and r ranging over EFA-provably computable positive reals, where EFA is an abbreviation for IΔ ₀?+?exp. We show that the following basic phase transition clauses hold with respect to ${T = \Pi_{1}^{0}\sf{CA}_{ < \varphi ^{_{\left( d-1\right) }} \left(0\right) }}$ and the threshold point1.

1. If r <? 1 then ${\sf{SWP}\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{d}, \trianglelefteq _{d},r \right) }$ is provable in T.

1. If ${r > 1}$ then ${\sf{SWP}\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{d}, \trianglelefteq _{d},r \right) }$ is not provable in T.

Moreover, by the well-known proof theoretic equivalences we can just as well replace T by PA or ACA ₀ and ${\Delta _{1}^{1}\sf{CA}}$ , if d =? 2 and d =? 3, respectively.In the limit case d → ∞ we replaceEFA-provably computable reals r by EFA-provably computable functions ${f: \mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_{+}}$ and prove analogous theorems. (In the sequel we denote by ${\mathbb{R}_{+}}$ the set of EFA-provably computable positive reals). In the basic case T?=? PA we strengthen the basic phase transition result by adding the following static threshold clause

1. ${\sf{SWP}\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{2}, \trianglelefteq _{2}, 1\right)}$ is still provable in T = PA (actually in EFA).

Furthermore we prove the following dynamic threshold clauses which, loosely speaking are obtained by replacing the static threshold t by slowly growing functions 1 _α given by ${1_{\alpha }\left( i\right)\,{:=}\,1+\frac{1}{H_{\alpha }^{-1}\left(i\right) }, H_{\alpha}}$ being the familiar fast growing Hardy function and ${H_{\alpha }^{-1}\left( i\right)\,{:=}\,\rm min \left\{ j \mid H_{\alpha } \left ( j\right) \geq i \right\}}$ the corresponding slowly growing inversion.

1. If ${\alpha < \varepsilon _{0}}$ , then ${\sf{SWP}\left({\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{2}, \trianglelefteq _{2}, 1_{\alpha}\right)}$ is provable in T = PA.

1. ${\sf{SWP}\left( {\rm S}\text{\textsc{eq}}^{2}, \trianglelefteq _{2},1_{\varepsilon _{0}}\right)}$ is not provable in T = PA.

We conjecture that this pattern is characteristic for all ${T\supseteq \sf{PA}}$ under consideration and their proof-theoretical ordinals o (T ), instead of ${\varepsilon _{0}}$ .     

A Note on Drazin Invertibility for Upper Triangular Block Operators

A bounded linear operator A acting on a Banach space X is said to be an upper triangular block operators of order n, and we write ${A \in \mathcal{UT}_{n}(X)}$ , if there exists a decomposition of ${X = X_{1} \oplus . . . \oplus X_{n}}$ and an n × n matrix operator ${(A_{i,j})_{\rm 1 \leq i, j \leq n}}$ such that ${A = (A_{i, j})_{1 \leq i, j \leq n}, A_{i, j} = 0}$ for i > j. In this note we characterize a large set of entries A _{i, j} with j > i such that ${\sigma_{\rm D} (A) = {\bigcup\limits_{i = 1}^{n}} \sigma_{\rm D} (A_{i, i})}$ ; where σ_D(.) is the Drazin spectrum. Some applications concerning the Fredholm theory and meromorphic operators are given.     

Embedded Spaces of Trigonometric Splines and Their Wavelet Expansion

With each infinite grid X: ? < x _?1 < x ₀ < x ₁ < ? we associate the system of trigonometric splines $\{ \mathfrak{T}_j^B \}$ of class C ¹(α, β), the linear space $$T^B (X)\mathop = \limits^{def} \{ \tilde u|\tilde u = \sum\limits_j {c_j \mathfrak{T}_j^B } \quad \forall c_j \in \mathbb{R}^1 \} ,$$ and the functionals g ⁽ⁱ⁾ ∈ (C ¹(α, β))* with the biorthogonality property: $\left\langle {g(i),\mathfrak{T}_j^B } \right\rangle = \delta _{i,j}$ (here $\alpha \mathop = \limits^{def} \lim _{j \to - \infty } x_j ,\quad \beta \mathop = \limits^{def} \lim _{j \to + \infty } x_j$ ). For nested grids $\bar X \subset X$ , we show that the corresponding spaces $T^B (\bar X)$ are embedded in $T^B (X)$ and obtain decomposition and reconstruction formulas for the spline-wavelet expansion $T^B (X) = T^B (\bar X)\dot + W$ derived with the help of the system of functionals indicated above.     

Uniqueness properties of degenerate elliptic operators

Let ?? be an open subset of R ^d and ${ K=-\sum^d_{i,j=1}\partial_i\,c_{ij}\,\partial_j+\sum^d_{i=1}c_i\partial_i+c_0}$ a second-order partial differential operator with real-valued coefficients ${c_{ij}=c_{ji}\in W^{1,\infty}_{\rm loc}(\Omega),c_i,c_0\in L_{\infty,{\rm loc}}(\Omega)}$ satisfying the strict ellipticity condition ${C=(c_{ij}) >0 }$ . Further let ${H=-\sum^d_{i,j=1} \partial_i\,c_{ij}\,\partial_j}$ denote the principal part of K. Assuming an accretivity condition ${C\geq \kappa (c\otimes c^{\,T})}$ with ${\kappa >0 }$ , an invariance condition ${(1\!\!1_\Omega, K\varphi)=0}$ and a growth condition which allows ${\|C(x)\|\sim |x|^2\log |x|}$ as |x| ?? ?? we prove that K is L ₁-unique if and only if H is L ₁-unique or Markov unique.     

The Left Hilbert BVP for h-Regular Functions in Clifford Analysis

Consider the real Clifford algebra ${\mathbb{R}_{0,n}}$ generated by e ₁, e ₂, . . . , e _n satisfying ${e_{i}e_{j} + e_{j}e_{i} = -2\delta_{ij} , i, j = 1, 2, . . . , n, e_{0}}$ is the unit element. Let ${\Omega}$ be an open set in ${\mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ . u(x) is called an h-regular function in ${\Omega}$ if $$D_{x}u(x) + \widehat{u}(x)h = 0, \quad\quad (0.1)$$ where ${D_x = \sum\limits_{i=0}^{n} e_{i}\partial_{xi}}$ is the Dirac operator in ${\mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ , and ${\widehat{u}(x) = \sum \limits_{A} (-1)^{\#A}u_{A}(x)e_{A}, \#A}$ denotes the cardinality of A and ${h = \sum\limits_{k=0}^{n} h_{k}e_{k}}$ is a constant paravector. In this paper, we mainly consider the Hilbert boundary value problem (BVP) for h-regular functions in ${\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n+1}}$ .     

A Bernstein Property of a Class of Fourth Order Complex Partial Differential Equations

Let ${f:\Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}}$ be a smooth function on a domain   ${\Omega \subset \mathbb{C}^n}$ with its Hessian matrix ${\left( \frac{\partial^2 f}{\partial z^i \partial\bar{z}^j}\right)}$ positive Hermitian. In this paper, we investigate a class of partial differential equations $$\Delta \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) = \beta \;\| \text{grad} \ln \det (f_{i\bar{j}}) \|^2, $$ where Δ and ${\| \cdot \|}$ are the Laplacian and tensor norm, respectively, with respect to the metric ${G = \sum f_{i\bar{j}} \,dz^i \otimes d\bar{z}^j}$ , and β > 1 is some real constant depending on the dimension n. We prove that the above PDEs have a Bernstein property when the metric G is complete, provided that ${\det (f_{i\bar{j}})}$ and the Ricci curvature are bounded.     

Orthogonality properties of linear combinations of orthogonal polynomials II

Let and be polynomials orthogonal on the unit circle with respect to the measures dσ and dμ, respectively. In this paper we consider the question how the orthogonality measures dσ and dμ are related to each other if the orthogonal polynomials are connected by a relation of the form , for , where . It turns out that the two measures are related by if , where and are known trigonometric polynomials of fixed degree and where the 's are the zeros of on . If the 's and 's are uniformly bounded then (under some additional conditions) much more can be said. Indeed, in this case the measures dσ and dμ have to be of the form and , respectively, where are nonnegative trigonometric polynomials. Finally, the question is considered to which weight functions polynomials of the form where denotes the reciprocal polynomial of , can be orthogonal. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Conservative fragments of {{S}^{1}_{2}} and {{R}^{1}_{2}}

Conservative subtheories of ${{R}^{1}_{2}}$ and ${{S}^{1}_{2}}$ are presented. For ${{S}^{1}_{2}}$ , a slight tightening of Je?ábek??s result (Math Logic Q 52(6):613?C624, 2006) that ${T^{0}_{2} \preceq_{\forall \Sigma^{b}_{1}}S^{1}_{2}}$ is presented: It is shown that ${T^{0}_{2}}$ can be axiomatised as BASIC together with induction on sharply bounded formulas of one alternation. Within this ${\forall\Sigma^{b}_{1}}$ -theory, we define a ${\forall\Sigma^{b}_{0}}$ -theory, ${T^{-1}_{2}}$ , for the ${\forall\Sigma^{b}_{0}}$ -consequences of ${S^{1}_{2}}$ . We show ${T^{-1}_{2}}$ is weak by showing it cannot ${\Sigma^{b}_{0}}$ -define division by 3. We then consider what would be the analogous ${\forall\hat\Sigma^{b}_{1}}$ -conservative subtheory of ${R^{1}_{2}}$ based on Pollett (Ann Pure Appl Logic 100:189?C245, 1999. It is shown that this theory, ${{T}^{0,\left\{2^{(||\dot{id}||)}\right\}}_{2}}$ , also cannot ${\Sigma^{b}_{0}}$ -define division by 3. On the other hand, we show that ${{S}^{0}_{2}+open_{\{||id||\}}}$ -COMP is a ${\forall\hat\Sigma^{b}_{1}}$ -conservative subtheory of ${R^{1}_{2}}$ . Finally, we give a refinement of Johannsen and Pollett (Logic Colloquium?? 98, 262?C279, 2000) and show that ${\hat{C}^{0}_{2}}$ is ${\forall\hat\Sigma^{b}_{1}}$ -conservative over a theory based on open _cl-comprehension.     

Symmetric 2-Structures,a Classification

We classify symmetric 2-structures ${(P, \mathfrak{G}_1, \mathfrak{G}_2, \mathfrak{K})}$ , i.e. chain structures which correspond to sharply 2-transitive permutation sets (E, Σ) satisfying the condition: “ ${(*) \, \, \forall \sigma, \tau \in \Sigma : \sigma \circ \tau^{-1} \circ \sigma \in \Sigma}$ ”. To every chain ${K \in \mathfrak{K}}$ one can associate a reflection ${\widetilde{K}}$ in K. Then (*) is equivalent to “ ${(**) \, \, \forall K \in \mathfrak{K} : \widetilde{K}(\mathfrak{K}) = \mathfrak{K}}$ ” and one can define an orthogonality “ ${\perp}$ ” for chains ${K, L \in \mathfrak{K}}$ by “ ${K \perp L \Leftrightarrow K \neq L \wedge \widetilde{K}(L) = L}$ ”. The classification is based on the cardinality of the set of chains which are orthogonal to a chain K and passing through a point p of K. For one of these classes (called point symmetric 2-structures) we proof that in each point there is a reflection and that the set of point reflections forms a regular involutory permutation set.     

Fixed Points and Quartic Functional Equations in β-Banach Modules

Let M?=?{ 1, 2, . . . ,?n?} and let ${\mathcal {V}=\{\,I \subseteq M: 1 \in I\,\}}$ , where n is an integer greater than 1. Denote ${M{\setminus}{I}}$ by I ^c for ${I \in \mathcal {V}.}$ We investigate the solution of the following generalized quartic functional equation $$\begin{array}{ll} \sum\limits_{I \in\mathcal {V}}f\, \left({\sum\limits_{i \in I}}a_ix_i-\sum\limits_{i \in I^c}a_ix_i\right) \, = \,2^{n-2} \sum\limits_{1\leq i < j \leq n}a^2_{i}a^2_{j} \left[f(x_{i}+x_{j})+f(x_{i}-x_{j})\right] \\ \qquad \qquad \qquad \quad\quad\quad \quad\quad\quad\quad +\,2^{n-1} \sum\limits^{n}_{i=1}a^2_{i} \left(a^2_{i}-\sum\limits^{n}_{\substack{{j=1}\\{j\neq i}}}a^2_{j}\right)f(x_{i}) \end{array}$$ in β-Banach modules on a Banach algebra, where ${a_{1},\ldots, a_{n}\in \mathbb{Z}{\setminus}\{0\}}$ with a _? ?≠ ±1 for all ${\ell \in \{1 , 2, \ldots ,\,n-1\}}$ and a _n ?=?1. Moreover, using the fixed point method, we prove the generalized Hyers–Ulam stability of the above generalized quartic functional equation. Finally, we give an example that the generalized Hyers–Ulam stability does not work.     

Identities for Bernoulli polynomials and Bernoulli numbers

We prove that if m and \({\nu}\) are integers with \({0 \leq \nu \leq m}\) and x is a real number, then

1. $$\sum_{k=0 \atop k+m \, \, odd}^{m-1} {m \choose k}{k+m \choose \nu} B_{k+m-\nu}(x) = \frac{1}{2} \sum_{j=0}^m (-1)^{j+m} {m \choose j}{j+m-1 \choose \nu} (j+m) x^{j+m-\nu-1},$$ where B _n (x) denotes the Bernoulli polynomial of degree n. An application of (1) leads to new identities for Bernoulli numbers B _n . Among others, we obtain
2. $$\sum_{k=0 \atop k+m \, \, odd}^{m -1} {m \choose k}{k+m \choose \nu} {k+m-\nu \choose j}B_{k+m-\nu-j} =0 \quad{(0 \leq j \leq m-2-\nu)}. $$ This formula extends two results obtained by Kaneko and Chen-Sun, who proved (2) for the special cases j = 1, \({\nu=0}\) and j = 3, \({\nu=0}\) , respectively.

     

Equal Quasi-Partition of p-Groups

Let S be a subgroup of a group G. A set ${\Pi= \{H_1, \ldots , H_n\}}$ of subgroups ${H_i (i = 1, \ldots ,n)}$ with ${G=\cup_{H_i\in\Pi}H_i}$ is said to be an equal quasi-partition of G if ${H_i\cap H_j\cong S}$ and ${|H_i|=|H_j|}$ for all ${H_i, H_j\in\Pi}$ with ${i\ne j}$ . In this paper we investigate finite p-groups such that a subset of their maximal subgroups form an equal quasi-partition.     

Projective Hausdorff gaps

Todor?evi? (Fund Math 150(1):55–66, 1996) shows that there is no Hausdorff gap (A, B) if A is analytic. In this note we extend the result by showing that the assertion “there is no Hausdorff gap (A, B) if A is coanalytic” is equivalent to “there is no Hausdorff gap (A, B) if A is ${{\bf \it{\Sigma}}^{1}_{2}}$ ”, and equivalent to ${\forall r \; (\aleph_1^{L[r]}\,< \aleph_1)}$ . We also consider real-valued games corresponding to Hausdorff gaps, and show that ${\mathsf{AD}_\mathbb{R}}$ for pointclasses Γ implies that there are no Hausdorff gaps (A, B) if ${{\it{A}} \in {\bf \it{\Gamma}}}$ .     

A Geometric Uncertainty Principle with an Application to Pleijel’s Estimate

Let \({\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^2}\) be an open, bounded domain and \({\Omega = \bigcup_{i = 1}^{N} \Omega_{i}}\) be a partition. Denote the Fraenkel asymmetry by \({0 \leq \mathcal{A}(\Omega_i) \leq 2}\) and write $$D(\Omega_i) := \frac{|\Omega_{i}| - {\rm min}_{1 \leq j \leq N}{|\Omega_{j}|}}{|\Omega_{i}|}$$ with \({0 \leq D(\Omega_{i}) \leq 1}\) . For N sufficiently large depending only on \({\Omega}\) , there is an uncertainty principle $$\left(\sum_{i=1}^{N}{\frac{|\Omega_{i}|}{|\Omega|}{\mathcal{A}}(\Omega_i)}\right) + \left(\sum_{i=1}^{N}{\frac{|\Omega_i|}{|\Omega|}D(\Omega_i)}\right) \geq \frac{1}{60000}.$$ The statement remains true in dimensions \({n \geq 3}\) for some constant \({c_{n} > 0}\) . As an application, we give an (unspecified) improvement of Pleijel’s estimate on the number of nodal domains of a Laplacian eigenfunction and an improved inequality for a spectral partition problem.     

The Majorization Theorem for Signless Laplacian Spectral Radii of Connected Graphs

Let ${\pi=(d_{1},d_{2},\ldots,d_{n})}$ and ${\pi'=(d'_{1},d'_{2},\ldots,d'_{n})}$ be two non-increasing degree sequences. We say ${\pi}$ is majorizated by ${\pi'}$ , denoted by ${\pi \vartriangleleft \pi'}$ , if and only if ${\pi\neq \pi'}$ , ${\sum_{i=1}^{n}d_{i}=\sum_{i=1}^{n}d'_{i}}$ , and ${\sum_{i=1}^{j}d_{i}\leq\sum_{i=1}^{j}d'_{i}}$ for all ${j=1,2,\ldots,n}$ . If there exists one connected graph G with ${\pi}$ as its degree sequence and ${c=(\sum_{i=1}^{n}d_{i})/2-n+1}$ , then G is called a c-cyclic graph and ${\pi}$ is called a c-cyclic degree sequence. Suppose ${\pi}$ is a non-increasing c-cyclic degree sequence and ${\pi'}$ is a non-increasing graphic degree sequence, if ${\pi \vartriangleleft \pi'}$ and there exists some t ${(2\leq t\leq n)}$ such that ${d'_{t}\geq c+1}$ and ${d_{i}=d'_{i}}$ for all ${t+1\leq i\leq n}$ , then the majorization ${\pi \vartriangleleft \pi'}$ is called a normal majorization. Let μ(G) be the signless Laplacian spectral radius, i.e., the largest eigenvalue of the signless Laplacian matrix of G. We use C _π to denote the class of connected graphs with degree sequence π. If ${G \in C_{\pi}}$ and ${\mu(G)\geq \mu(G')}$ for any other ${G'\in C_{\pi}}$ , then we say G has greatest signless Laplacian radius in C _π . In this paper, we prove that: Let π and π′ be two different non-increasing c-cyclic (c ≥ 0) degree sequences, G and G′ be the connected c-cyclic graphs with greatest signless Laplacian spectral radii in C _π and C _π', respectively. If ${\pi \vartriangleleft \pi'}$ and it is a normal majorization, then ${\mu(G) < \mu(G')}$ . This result extends the main result of Zhang (Discrete Math 308:3143–3150, 2008).     

Systems of variational inequalities in the context of optimal switching problems and operators of Kolmogorov type

In this paper we study the system $$\begin{aligned}&\min \biggl \{-\mathcal H u_i(x,t)-\psi _i(x,t),u_i(x,t)-\max _{j\ne i}(-c_{i,j}(x,t)+u_j(x,t))\biggr \}=0,\\&u_i(x,T)=g_i(x),\ i\in \{1,\ldots ,d\}, \end{aligned}$$ where \((x,t)\in \mathbb R ^{N}\times [0,T]\) . A special case of this type of system of variational inequalities with terminal data occurs in the context of optimal switching problems. We establish a general comparison principle for viscosity sub- and supersolutions to the system under mild regularity, growth, and structural assumptions on the data, i.e., on the operator \(\mathcal H \) and on continuous functions \(\psi _i\) , \(c_{i,j}\) , and \(g_i\) . A key aspect is that we make no sign assumption on the switching costs \(\{c_{i,j}\}\) and that \(c_{i,j}\) is allowed to depend on \(x\) as well as \(t\) . Using the comparison principle, the existence of a unique viscosity solution \((u_1,\ldots ,u_d)\) to the system is constructed as the limit of an increasing sequence of solutions to associated obstacle problems. Having settled the existence and uniqueness, we subsequently focus on regularity of \((u_1,\ldots ,u_d)\) beyond continuity. In this context, in particular, we assume that \(\mathcal H \) belongs to a class of second-order differential operators of Kolmogorov type of the form: $$\begin{aligned} \mathcal H =\sum _{i,j=1}^m a_{i,j}(x,t)\partial _{x_i x_j}+\sum _{i=1}^m a_i(x,t)\partial _{x_i} +\sum _{i,j=1}^N b_{i,j}x_i\partial _{x_j}+\partial _t, \end{aligned}$$ where \(1\le m\le N\) . The matrix \(\{a_{i,j}(x,t)\}_{i,j=1,\ldots ,m}\) is assumed to be symmetric and uniformly positive definite in \(\mathbb R ^m\) . In particular, uniform ellipticity is only assumed in the first \(m\) coordinate directions, and hence, \(\mathcal H \) may be degenerate.