Regularity and relaxed problems of minimizing biharmonic maps into spheres

For and , we show that any minimizing biharmonic map from to S^k is smooth off a closed set whose Hausdorff dimension is at most n-5. When n = 5 and k = 4, for a parameter we introduce a -relaxed energy of the Hessian energy for maps in so that each minimizer of is also a biharmonic map. We also establish the existence and partial regularity of a minimizer of for .Received: 5 April 2004, Accepted: 19 October 2004, Published online: 10 December 2004     

Dirichlet and Bergman Spaces of Holomorphic Functions on the Unit Ball of ℂ<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>

Let B denote the unit ball in ⁿ, n 1, and let and denote the volume measure and gradient with respect to the Bergman metric on B. In the paper we consider the weighted Dirichlet spaces , , and weighted Bergman spaces , , , of holomorphic functions f on B for which and respectively are finite, where and The main result of the paper is the following theorem.Theorem 1. Let f be holomorphic on B and .(a) If for some , then for all p, , with .(b) If for some p, , then for all with . Combining Theorem 1 with previous results of the author we also obtain the following.Theorem 2. Suppose is holomorphic in B. If for some p, , and , then . Conversely, if for some p, , then the series in * converges.     

The Dirichlet energy of mappings from ${\bf B^3}$ into a manifold: density results and gap phenomenon

Weak limits of graphs of smooth maps with equibounded Dirichlet integral give rise to elements of the space . We assume that the 2-homology group of has no torsion and that the Hurewicz homomorphism is injective. Then, in dimension n = 3, we prove that every element T in , which has no singular vertical part, can be approximated weakly in the sense of currents by a sequence of smooth graphs {u _k } with Dirichlet energies converging to the energy of T. We also show that the injectivity hypothesis on the Hurewicz map cannot be removed. We finally show that a similar topological obstruction on the target manifold holds for the approximation problem of the area functional.Received: 9 May 2003, Accepted: 5 June 2003, Published online: 25 February 2004     

On the relaxation and the Lavrentieff phenomenon for variational integrals with pointwise measurable gradient constraints

Relaxation problems for a functional of the type are analyzed, where is a bounded smooth open subset of and g is a Carathéodory function. The admissible functions u are forced to satisfy a pointwise gradient constraint of the type for a.e. being, for every , a bounded convex subset of , in general varying with x not necessarily in a smooth way. The relaxed functionals and of G obtained letting u vary respectively in , the set of the piecewise C ¹-functions in , and in in the definition of G are considered. For both of them integral representation results are proved, with an explicit representation formula for the density of . Examples are proposed showing that in general the two densities are different, and that the one of is not obtained from g simply by convexification arguments. Eventually, the results are discussed in the framework of Lavrentieff phenomenon, showing by means of an example that deep differences occur between and . Results in more general settings are also obtained.Received: 18 December 2002, Accepted: 18 November 2003, Published online: 16 July 2004Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 49J45, 49J10, 49J53This work is part of the European Research Training Network Homogenization and Multiple Scales (HMS 2000), under contract HPRN-2000-00109. It is also part of the 2003-G.N.A.M.P.A. Project Metodi Variazionali per Strutture Sottili, Frontiere Oscillanti ed Energie Vincolate.     

Embedding metric spaces into normed spaces and estimates of metric capacity

Let be an arbitrary real normed space of finite dimension d ≥ 2. We define the metric capacity of as the maximal such that every m-point metric space is isometric to some subset of (with metric induced by ). We obtain that the metric capacity of lies in the range from 3 to , where the lower bound is sharp for all d, and the upper bound is shown to be sharp for d ∈ {2, 3}. Thus, the unknown sharp upper bound is asymptotically linear, since it lies in the range from d + 2 to . Research supported by the German Research Foundation, Project AV 85/1-1.     

A bijection between Littlewood-Richardson tableaux and rigged configurations

We define a bijection from Littlewood-Richardson tableaux to rigged configurations and show that it preserves the appropriate statistics. This proves in particular a quasi-particle expression for the generalized Kostka polynomials labeled by a partition and a sequence of rectangles R. The generalized Kostka polynomials are q-analogues of multiplicities of the irreducible -module of highest weight in the tensor product .     

Arithmetic mean of differences of Dedekind sums

Recently, Girstmair and Schoissengeier studied the asymptotic behavior of the arithmetic mean of Dedekind sums , as N → ∞. In this paper we consider the arithmetic mean of weighted differences of Dedekind sums in the form , where is a continuous function with , runs over , the set of Farey fractions of order Q in the unit interval [0,1] and are consecutive elements of . We show that the limit lim _Q→∞ A _h (Q) exists and is independent of h.     

Minimal nodal solutions of the pure critical exponent problem on a symmetric domain

We establish existence of nodal solutions to the pure critical exponent problem in u = 0 on where a bounded smooth domain which is invariant under an orthogonal involution of We extend previous results for positive solutions due to Coron, Dancer, Ding, and Passaseo to existence and multiplicity results for solutions which change sign exactly once.Received: 4 April 2003, Accepted: 26 August 2003, Published online: 24 November 2003Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 35J65, 35J20Research partially supported by PAPIIT, UNAM, under grant IN110902-3.     

Singular minimizers of strictly polyconvex functionals in {\bf R}^{2 \times 2}

We give examples of non-C¹ one-homogeneous mappings and non-negative strictly polyconvex functions f such that where B denotes the unit ball in . Such u are therefore singular minimizers of the corresponding strictly polyconvex functionals in appropriate Sobolev spaces. Received: 12 January 2004, Accepted: 13 September 2004, Published online: 10 December 2004     

Boundary blow-up for a Brezis-Peletier problem on a singular domain

Let , , be a bounded domain as defined by Flucher, Garroni and Müller [6], which has a singular point such that the Robins function achieves its infimum at . Considering the elliptic problem in ; u = 0 on , with p = (N + 2)/(N-2), , and a minimizing solution of , concentrates at as goes to zero.Received: 15 September 2002, Accepted: 5 November 2002, Published online: 16 May 2003Mathematics Subject Classification: 35J65Angela Pistoia: The author is supported by M.U.R.S.T., project Metodi variazionali e topologici nello studio di fenomeni non lineari     

On the minimizers of the relaxed energy functional of mappings from higher dimensional balls into S 2

We prove a new approximation theorem, which enables us to show that the relaxed energy of Sobolev mappings u from higher dimensional balls into S² is given by , provided their singular set is of Lebesgue measure zero. Here is the mass of the minimal integer multiplicity connection associated to the singularity current S_u of u. Using this approximation theorem, we prove a partial regularity theorem for minimizers of the relaxed energy functional.Received: 5 May 2004, Accepted: 19 October 2004, Published online: 10 December 2004     

Stationary measures and rectifiability

For integers , we consider -valued Radon measures on an open set which satisfy

Inverse scattering up to smooth functions for the Dirac-ZS-AKNS system

We consider the Dirac-ZS-AKNS system (1) where (the space of functions with n derivatives in L ¹), (2) We consider for (1) the transition matrix and, in addition, for the case of the Dirac system (i.e. for the selfadjoint case the scattering matrix We can divide main results of the present work into three parts. I. We show that the inverse scattering transform and the inverse Fourier transform give the same solution, up to smooth functions, of the inverse scattering problem for (1). More preciseley, we show that, under condition (2) with , the following formulas are valid: (3) and, in addition, for the case of the Dirac system (4) where denotes the factor space. II. Using (3), (4), we give the characterization of the transition matrix and the scattering matrix for the case of the Dirac system under condition (2) with III. As applications of the results mentioned above, we show that 1) for any real-valued initial data , the Cauchy problem for the sh-Gordon equation has a unique solution such that and for any t > 0, 2) in addition, for , for such a solution the following formula is valid: where denotes the space of functions locally integrable with n derivatives. We give also a review of preceding results.     

Resonance Free Domains for Non Globally Analytic Potentials

We study the resonances of the semiclassical Schr?dinger operator near a non-trapping energy level in the case when the potential V is not necessarily analytic on all of but only outside some compact set. Then we prove that for some and for any C > 0, P admits no resonance in the domain if V is , and if V is Gevrey with index s. Here does not depend on h and the results are uniform with respect to h > 0 small enough. Submitted 05/02/02, accepted 06/05/02 An erratum to this article is available at .     

Partial regularity of minimizers of polyconvex variational integrals

We prove partial regularity of vector-valued minimizers u of the polyconvex variational integral , where stands for the minors of the gradient Du. For the integrand, we assume f to be a continuous function of class C ², strictly convex and of polynomial growth in the minors, and g to be a bounded Carathéodory function. We do not employ a Caccioppoli inequality.Received: 19 March 2002, Accepted: 24 October 2002, Published online: 16 May 2003Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 49N60, 35J50     

Improved regularity of harmonic map flows with Hölder continuous energy

For a smooth harmonic map flow with blow-up as , it has been asked [5,6,7] whether the weak limit is continuous. Recently, in [12], we showed that in general it need not be. Meanwhile, the energy function , being weakly positive, smooth and weakly decreasing, has a continuous extension to [0,T]. Here we show that if this extension is also Hölder continuous, then the weak limit u(T) must also be Hölder continuous.Received: 1 September 2003, Accepted: 7 October 2003, Published online: 25 February 2004Version of 19/9/03. Partly supported by an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship.     

Approximating <Emphasis Type="Italic">J</Emphasis>-holomorphic curves by holomorphic ones

Given an almost complex structure J in a cylinder of (p > 1) together with a compatible symplectic form and given an arbitrary J-holomorphic curve without boundary in that cylinder, we construct an holomorphic perturbation of , for the canonical complex structure J ₀ of , such that the distance between these two curves in W ^1,2 and norms, in a sub-cylinder, are controled by quantities depending on J, and by the area of only. These estimates depend neither on the topology nor on the conformal class of . They are key tools in the recent proof of the regularity of 1-1 integral currents in [RT].Received: 2 October 2003, Accepted: 18 November 2003, Published online: 25 February 2004     

Higher-order energy expansions and spike locations

We consider the following singularly perturbed semilinear elliptic problem: where is a bounded domain in R ^N with smooth boundary , is a small constant and f is some superlinear but subcritical nonlinearity. Associated with (I) is the energy functional defined by where . Ni and Takagi ([29, 30]) proved that for a single boundary spike solution , the following asymptotic expansion holds: where c ₁ > 0 is a generic constant, is the unique local maximum point of and is the boundary mean curvature function at . In this paper, we obtain a higher-order expansion of where c ₂, c ₃ are generic constants and is the scalar curvature at . In particular c ₃ > 0. Some applications of this expansion are given.Received: 14 January 2003, Accepted: 28 July 2003, Published online: 15 October 2003Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary 35B40, 35B45; Secondary 35J25     

$C^\infty$ regularity of the free boundary for a two-dimensional optimal compliance problem

We study the regularizing effect of perimeter penalties for a problem of optimal compliance in two dimensions. In particular, we consider minimizers of