Schauder estimates for a degenerate second order elliptic operator on a cube

In the present article we are concerned with a class of degenerate second order differential operators LA,b defined on the cube d[0,1], with d?1. Under suitable assumptions on the coefficients A and b (among them the assumption of their Hölder regularity) we show that the operator LA,b defined on C²(d[0,1]) is closable and its closure is m-dissipative. In particular, its closure is the generator of a C₀-semigroup of contractions on C(d[0,1]) and C²(d[0,1]) is a core for it. The proof of such result is obtained by studying the solvability in Hölder spaces of functions of the elliptic problem λu(x)−LA,bu(x)=f(x), x∈d[0,1], for a sufficiently large class of functions f.     

Schauder estimates for a class of second order elliptic operators on a cube

We consider a class of second order elliptic operators on a d-dimensional cube S_d. We prove that if the coefficients are of class C^k+δ(S_d), with k=0,1 and δ∈(0,1), then the corresponding elliptic problem admits a unique solution u belonging to C^k+2+δ(S_d) and satisfying non-standard boundary conditions involving only second order derivatives.     

Maximum principles for weak solutions of degenerate elliptic equations with a uniformly elliptic direction

For second order linear equations and inequalities which are degenerate elliptic but which possess a uniformly elliptic direction, we formulate and prove weak maximum principles which are compatible with a solvability theory in suitably weighted versions of L²-based Sobolev spaces. The operators are not necessarily in divergence form, have terms of lower order, and have low regularity assumptions on the coefficients. The needed weighted Sobolev spaces are, in general, anisotropic spaces defined by a non-negative continuous matrix weight. As preparation, we prove a Poincaré inequality with respect to such matrix weights and analyze the elementary properties of the weighted spaces. Comparisons to known results and examples of operators which are elliptic away from a hyperplane of arbitrary codimension are given. Finally, in the important special case of operators whose principal part is of Grushin type, we apply these results to obtain some spectral theory results such as the existence of a principal eigenvalue.     

Strong comparison principles for some nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations

In this paper, we obtain the strong comparison principle and Hopf Lemma for locally Lipschitz viscosity solutions to a class of nonlinear degenerate elliptic operators of the form ▽~2ψ + L(x, ▽ψ), including the conformal hessian operator.     

Existence and regularity of the solution of a mixed boundary value problem for the Keldysh equation with a nonlinear absorption term

The Keldysh equation is a more general form of the classic Tricomi equation from fluid dynamics. Its well-posedness and the regularity of its solution are interesting and important. The Keldysh equation is elliptic in y>0 and is degenerate at the line y=0 in R². Adding a special nonlinear absorption term, we study a nonlinear degenerate elliptic equation with mixed boundary conditions in a piecewise smooth domain—similar to the potential fluid shock reflection problem. By means of an elliptic regularization technique, a delicate a priori estimate and compact argument, we show that the solution of a mixed boundary value problem of the Keldysh equation is smooth in the interior and Lipschitz continuous up to the degenerate boundary under some conditions. We believe that this kind of regularity result for the solution will be rather useful.     

Viscosity solutions to second order partial differential equations on Riemannian manifolds

We prove comparison, uniqueness and existence results for viscosity solutions to a wide class of fully nonlinear second order partial differential equations F(x,u,du,d²u)=0 defined on a finite-dimensional Riemannian manifold M. Finest results (with hypothesis that require the function F to be degenerate elliptic, that is nonincreasing in the second order derivative variable, and uniformly continuous with respect to the variable x) are obtained under the assumption that M has nonnegative sectional curvature, while, if one additionally requires F to depend on d²u in a uniformly continuous manner, then comparison results are established with no restrictive assumptions on curvature.     

Representation theorems for Sobolev spaces on intervals and multiplicity results for nonlinear ODEs

We present some topological isomorphisms between Wm,p((0,1)) and Lp((0,1))×Rm. Combined with some arguments from Fourier analysis, we obtain explicit Schauder bases for Wm,p((0,1)) and some of its subspaces. In addition, we apply such results to treat some boundary value problems involving nonlinear elliptic differential equations.     

Asymptotics of Green functions and Martin boundaries for elliptic operators with periodic coefficients

We give the asymptotics at infinity of a Green function for an elliptic equation with periodic coefficients on R^d. Basic ingredients in establishing the asymptotics are an integral representation of the Green function and the saddle point method. We also completely determine the Martin compactification of R^d with respect to an elliptic equation with periodic coefficients by using the exact asymptotics at infinity of the Green function.     

G-convergence,Dirichlet to Neumann maps and invisibility

We establish optimal conditions under which the G-convergence of linear elliptic operators implies the convergence of the corresponding Dirichlet to Neumann maps. As an application we show that the approximate cloaking isotropic materials from [19] are independent of the source.     

Monotonicity of solutions of Fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations in the half-plane

In this paper we study the monotonicity of positive (or non-negative) viscosity solutions to uniformly elliptic equations F(∇u,D²u)=f(u) in the half plane, where f is locally Lipschitz continuous (with f(0)?0) and zero Dirichlet boundary conditions are imposed. The result is obtained without assuming the u or |∇u| are bounded.     

Principal eigenvalues and the Dirichlet problem for fully nonlinear elliptic operators

We study uniformly elliptic fully nonlinear equations of the type F(D²u,Du,u,x)=f(x). We show that convex positively 1-homogeneous operators possess two principal eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, and study these objects; we obtain existence and uniqueness results for nonproper operators whose principal eigenvalues (in some cases, only one of them) are positive; finally, we obtain an existence result for nonproper Isaac's equations.     

Alexandroff-Bakelman-Pucci estimate and Harnack inequality for degenerate/singular fully non-linear elliptic equations

In this paper, we study fully non-linear elliptic equations in non-divergence form which can be degenerate or singular when “the gradient is small”. Typical examples are either equations involving the m-Laplace operator or Bellman-Isaacs equations from stochastic control problems. We establish an Alexandroff-Bakelman-Pucci estimate and we prove a Harnack inequality for viscosity solutions of such non-linear elliptic equations.     

Anderson localization and Lifshits tails for random surface potentials

We consider Schrödinger operators on L²(R^d) with a random potential concentrated near the surface R^d₁×{0}⊂R^d. We prove that the integrated density of states of such operators exhibits Lifshits tails near the bottom of the spectrum. From this and the multiscale analysis by Boutet de Monvel and Stollmann [Arch. Math. 80 (2003) 87-97] we infer Anderson localization (pure point spectrum and dynamical localization) for low energies. Our proof of Lifshits tails relies on spectral properties of Schrödinger operators with partially periodic potentials. In particular, we show that the lowest energy band of such operators is parabolic.     

The Calderón Projector for an elliptic operator in divergence form

The Calderón Projector, is one of the most important tools in the study of boundary value problems for elliptic operators. Its construction is well known for elliptic operators with C^∞ coefficients on C^∞ domains and even for the Laplacian operator on C¹ domains. The aim of this article is to extend the results for the Laplacian case to elliptic operators in divergence form with Lipschitz coefficients on C¹ domains.     

A family of degenerate elliptic operators: Maximum principle and its consequences

In this paper we investigate the validity and the consequences of the maximum principle for degenerate elliptic operators whose higher order term is the sum of k eigenvalues of the Hessian. In particular we shed some light on some very unusual phenomena due to the degeneracy of the operator. We prove moreover Lipschitz regularity results and boundary estimates under convexity assumptions on the domain. As a consequence we obtain the existence of solutions of the Dirichlet problem and of principal eigenfunctions.     

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.     

Existence of solutions for degenerate quasilinear elliptic equations

This paper deals with a class of degenerate quasilinear elliptic equations of the form −div(a(x,u,∇u)=g−div(f), where a(x,u,∇u) is allowed to be degenerate with the unknown u. We prove existence of bounded solutions under some hypothesis on f and g. Moreover we prove that there exists a renormalized solution in the case where g∈L¹(Ω) and f∈(L^p′(Ω))^N.     

Semilinear elliptic variational inequalities with dependence on the gradient via Mountain Pass techniques

In this paper we consider a semilinear variational inequality with a gradient-dependent nonlinear term. Obviously the nature of this problem is non-variational. Nevertheless we study that problem associating a suitable semilinear variational inequality, variational in nature, with it, and performing an iterative technique used in De Figueiredo et al. (2004) [6] in order to treat semilinear elliptic equations when there is a gradient dependence on the nonlinearity. We prove the existence of a non-trivial non-negative weak solution u for our problem using essentially variational methods, a penalization technique and an iterative scheme. Via Lewy-Stampacchia’s estimates and regularity theory for elliptic equation we also show that u is differentiable and its gradient is α-H?lder continuous on for any α∈(0,1).     

Renormalized solutions of degenerate elliptic problems

We consider a general class of degenerate elliptic problems of the form Au+g(x,u,Du)=f, where A is a Leray-Lions operator from a weighted Sobolev space into its dual. We assume that g(x,s,ξ) is a Caratheodory function verifying a sign condition and a growth condition on ξ. Existence of renormalized solutions is established in the L¹-setting.