Large solutions for biharmonic maps in four dimensions

We seek critical points of the Hessian energy functional , where or Ω is the unit disk in and u : Ω → S ⁴. We show that has a critical point which is not homotopic to the constant map. Moreover, we prove that, for certain prescribed boundary data on ∂B, E _B achieves its infimum in at least two distinct homotopy classes of maps from B into S ⁴. The author was partially supported by SNF 200021-101930/1.     

Very weak solutions to elliptic equations with nonlinear Neumann boundary conditions

Consider the equation −Δu = 0 in a bounded smooth domain , complemented by the nonlinear Neumann boundary condition ∂_ν u = f(x, u) − u on ∂Ω. We show that any very weak solution of this problem belongs to L ^∞(Ω) provided f satisfies the growth condition |f(x, s)| ≤ C(1 + |s| ^p ) for some p ∈ (1, p*), where . If, in addition, f(x, s) ≥ −C + λs for some λ > 1, then all positive very weak solutions are uniformly a priori bounded. We also show by means of examples that p* is a sharp critical exponent. In particular, using variational methods we prove the following multiplicity result: if N ∈ {3, 4} and f(x, s) =  s ^p then there exists a domain Ω and such that our problem possesses at least two positive, unbounded, very weak solutions blowing up at a prescribed point of ∂Ω provided . Our regularity results and a priori bounds for positive very weak solutions remain true if the right-hand side in the differential equation is of the form h(x, u) with h satisfying suitable growth conditions.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">hp</Emphasis>-Discontinuous Galerkin methods for strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems

In this paper, we have analyzed a one parameter family of hp-discontinuous Galerkin methods for strongly nonlinear elliptic boundary value problems with Dirichlet boundary conditions. These methods depend on the values of the parameter , where θ = + 1 corresponds to the nonsymmetric and θ = −1 corresponds to the symmetric interior penalty methods when and f(u,∇u) = −f, that is, for the Poisson problem. The error estimate in the broken H ¹ norm, which is optimal in h (mesh size) and suboptimal in p (degree of approximation) is derived using piecewise polynomials of degree p ≥ 2, when the solution . In the case of linear elliptic problems also, this estimate is optimal in h and suboptimal in p. Further, optimal error estimate in the L ² norm when θ = −1 is derived. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the theoretical results. Supported by DST-DAAD (PPP-05) project.     

Bounds and monotonicity for the generalized Robin problem

We consider the principal eigenvalue λ ₁^Ω(α) corresponding to Δu = λ (α) u in on ∂Ω, with α a fixed real, and a C ^0,1 bounded domain. If α > 0 and small, we derive bounds for λ ₁^Ω(α) in terms of a Stekloff-type eigenvalue; while for α > 0 large we study the behavior of its growth in terms of maximum curvature. We analyze how domain monotonicity of the principal eigenvalue depends on the geometry of the domain, and prove that domains which exhibit domain monotonicity for every α are calibrable. We conjecture that a domain has the domain monotonicity property for some α if and only if it is calibrable. Robert Smits: This author was partially supported by a grant of the National Security Agency, grant #H98230-05-1-0060.     

Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors II: Crack singularities

We consider the Poisson equation −Δu=f with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition on a two-dimensional polygonal domain Ω with cracks. Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors using piecewise linear functions are analyzed. The convergence rate for the stress intensity factors is whenfεL ²(Ω) and whenfεH ¹(Ω). The convergence rate in the energy norm is in the first case and in the second case. The costs of these multigrid methods are proportional to the number of elements in the triangulation. The general case wherefεH ^m (Ω) is also discussed. The work of the first author was partially supported by NSF under grant DMS-96-00133     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">BV</Emphasis> functions and parabolic initial boundary value problems on domains

Given a uniformly elliptic second order operator on a possibly unbounded domain , let (T(t)) _t≥0 be the semigroup generated by in L ¹(Ω), under homogeneous co-normal boundary conditions on ∂Ω. We show that the limit as t → 0 of the L ¹-norm of the spatial gradient D _x T(t)u ₀ tends to the total variation of the initial datum u ₀, and in particular is finite if and only if u ₀ belongs to BV(Ω). This result is true also for weighted BV spaces. A further characterization of BV functions in terms of the short-time behaviour of (T(t)) _t≥0 is also given.      

On the rate of convergence of <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis></Subscript> norms in the CLT for poisson and gamma random variables

In the paper, we present upper bounds of L _p norms of order ( X)^-1/2 for all 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞ in the central limit theorem for a standardized random variable (X− X)/ √ X, where a random variable X is distributed by the Poisson distribution with parameter λ > 0 or by the standard gamma distribution Γ(α, 0, 1) with parameter α > 0. The research was partially supported by the Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation, grant No. T-70/09.     

Partial regularity for polyconvex functionals depending on the Hessian determinant

We prove a C ^2,α partial regularity result for local minimizers of polyconvex variational integrals of the type , where Ω is a bounded open subset of , and is a convex function, with subquadratic growth.     

Statistical Problems Related to Irrational Rotations

Let be random variables as functions of β in the probability space [0,1) with the Lebesgue measure, where is considered to be an unknown parameter which we want to estimate from the observation ξ :=ξ₁, ξ₂...ξ _m . Let an observation ξ be given, which is a finite Sturmian sequence. We determine the likelihood function P _α(ξ) as a function of parameter α, and obtain the maximum likelihood estimator as the relative frequency of 1s in a minimal cycle of ξ, where a factor η of ξ is called a minimal cycle if ξ is a factor of η^∞ and η has the minimum length among them. We also obtain a minimum sufficient statistics. The sample mean (ξ₁ + ξ₂ + ... + ξ _m )/m which is an unbiased estimator of α is not admissible if m=6 or m ≥ 8 since it is not based on the minimum sufficient statistics.     

On maximal injective subalgebras in a <Emphasis Type="Italic">w</Emphasis>Γ factor

Let (F _ℚ) × _α ℤ be the crossed product von Neumann algebra of the free group factor (F _ℚ), associated with the left regular representation λ of the free group F _ℚ with the set {u _r : r ∈ ℚ} of generators, by an automorphism α defined by α(λ(u _r )) = exp(2πri)λ(u _r ), where ℚ is the rational number set. We show that (F _ℚ) × _α ℤ is a wΓ factor, and for each r ∈ ℚ, the von Neumann subalgebra generated in (F _ℚ) × _α ℚ by λ(u _r ) and υ is maximal injective, where υ is the unitary implementing the automorphism α. In particular, (F _ℚ) × _α ℣ is a wΓ factor with a maximal abelian selfadjoint subalgebra which cannot be contained in any hyperfinite type II₁ subfactor of (F _ℚ) × _α ℚ. This gives a counterexample of Kadison’s problem in the case of wΓ factor. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10201007, A0324614) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. Y2006A03)     

On representation theorem of <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>-expectations and paths of <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>-Brownian motion

We give a very simple and elementary proof of the existence of a weakly compact family of probability measures {Pθ ： θ∈θ} representing an important sublinear expectation- G-expectation E[·]. We also give a concrete approximation of a bounded continuous function X（ω） by an increasing sequence of cylinder functions Lip（Ω） in order to prove that Cb（Ω） belongs to the completion of Lip（Ω） under the natural norm E[｜·｜].     

On the discrepancy principle for some Newton type methods for solving nonlinear inverse problems

We consider the computation of stable approximations to the exact solution of nonlinear ill-posed inverse problems F(x) = y with nonlinear operators F : X → Y between two Hilbert spaces X and Y by the Newton type methods

Finite elements approximation of second order linear elliptic equations in divergence form with right-hand side in L 1

In this paper we consider, in dimension d≥ 2, the standard finite elements approximation of the second order linear elliptic equation in divergence form with coefficients in L ^∞(Ω) which generalizes Laplace’s equation. We assume that the family of triangulations is regular and that it satisfies an hypothesis close to the classical hypothesis which implies the discrete maximum principle. When the right-hand side belongs to L ¹(Ω), we prove that the unique solution of the discrete problem converges in (for every q with ) to the unique renormalized solution of the problem. We obtain a weaker result when the right-hand side is a bounded Radon measure. In the case where the dimension is d = 2 or d = 3 and where the coefficients are smooth, we give an error estimate in when the right-hand side belongs to L ^r (Ω) for some r > 1.     

Continuous spectrum for a class of nonhomogeneous differential operators

We study the boundary value problem in Ω, u = 0 on ∂Ω, where Ω is a bounded domain in with smooth boundary, λ is a positive real number, and the continuous functions p ₁, p ₂, and q satisfy 1 < p ₂(x) < q(x) < p ₁(x) < N and for any . The main result of this paper establishes the existence of two positive constants λ₀ and λ₁ with λ₀ ≤ λ₁ such that any is an eigenvalue, while any is not an eigenvalue of the above problem.     

Convex Minimization over the Fixed Point Set of Demicontractive Mappings

This paper deals with a viscosity iteration method, in a real Hilbert space , for minimizing a convex function over the fixed point set of , a mapping in the class of demicontractive operators, including the classes of quasi-nonexpansive and strictly pseudocontractive operators. The considered algorithm is written as: x _n+1 := (1 − w) v _n + w T v _n , v _n := x _n − α _n Θ′(x _n ), where w ∈ (0,1) and , Θ′ is the Gateaux derivative of Θ. Under classical conditions on T, Θ, Θ′ and the parameters, we prove that the sequence (x _n ) generated, with an arbitrary , by this scheme converges strongly to some element in Argmin _Fix(T) Θ.      

Schatten-von Neumann Hankel Operators on the Bergman Space of Planar Domains

In this paper we study the problem of the joint membership of Hφ and in the Schatten-von Neumann p-class when φ ∈ L∞(Ω) and Ω is a planar domain. We use a result of K. Zhu and the localization near the boundary to solve the problem. Finally, we recover a result of Arazy, Fisher and Peetre on the case with φ holomorphic.      

A Real Analyticity Result for Symmetric Functions of the Eigenvalues of a Domain-Dependent Neumann Problem for the Laplace Operator

Let Ω be an open connected subset of for which the imbedding of the Sobolev space W ^1,2(Ω) into the space L ²(Ω) is compact. We consider the Neumann eigenvalue problem for the Laplace operator in the open subset (Ω) of , where is a Lipschitz continuous homeomorphism of Ω onto (Ω). Then we prove a result of real analytic dependence for symmetric functions of the eigenvalues upon variation of . This paper represents an extension of a part of the work performed by P.D. Lamberti in his PhD Thesis at the University of Padova under the guidance of M. Lanza de Cristoforis.     

On <Emphasis Type="Italic">Γ</Emphasis>-convergence of quadratic functionals in the plane

In this paper, we prove that if a sequence of homeomorphisms , with bounded planar domains, of Sobolev space has uniformly equibounded distortions in EXP(Ω) and weakly converges to f in then the matrices A(x, f _j ) of the corresponding Laplace-Beltrami operators Γ-converge in the Orlicz–Sobolev space , where Q(t) = t ²log(e + t), to the matrix A(x, f) of the Laplace-Beltrami operator associated to f.      

A Characterization of Some Classes of Harmonic Functions

In this paper we investigate harmonic Hardy-Orlicz and Bergman-Orlicz b _φ,α (B) spaces, using an identity of Hardy-Stein type. We also extend the notion of the Lusin property by introducing (φ, α)-Lusin property with respect to a Stoltz domain. The main result in the paper is as follows: Let be a nonnegative increasing convex function twice differentiable on (0, ∞), and u a harmonic function on the unit ball B in . Then the following statements are equivalent: