A Poincaré-Sobolev type inequality on compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary

In this paper we study a Poincaré-Sobolev type inequality on compact Riemannian n-manifolds with boundary where the exponent growth is critical. Two constants have to be determined. We show that, contrary to the classical Sobolev inequality, the first best constant in this inequality does not depend on the dimension only, but depends on the geometry. It can be represented as the minimum of a given energy functional. We study the nonlinear PDE associated to this functional which involves the geometry of the boundary. For a star-shaped domain D in whose boundary has positive Ricci curvature, we give explicitly two Sobolev constants corresponding to the embedding in . This result is used to obtain an explicit geometrical lower bound for . Received November 15, 1999 / Published online April 12, 2001     

Critical Objective Size and Calmness Modulus in Linear Programming

This paper introduces the concept of critical objective size associated with a linear program in order to provide operative point-based formulas (only involving the nominal data, and not data in a neighborhood) for computing or estimating the calmness modulus of the optimal set (argmin) mapping under uniqueness of nominal optimal solution and perturbations of all coefficients. Our starting point is an upper bound on this modulus given in Cánovas et al. (4). In this paper we prove that this upper bound is attained if and only if the norm of the objective function coefficient vector is less than or equal to the critical objective size. This concept also allows us to obtain operative lower bounds on the calmness modulus. We analyze in detail an illustrative example in order to explore some strategies that can improve the referred upper and lower bounds.     

Finiteness of Hilbert functions and bounds for Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of initial ideals

Bounds for the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity and Hilbert coefficients are given in terms of the arithmetic degree (if the ring is reduced) or in terms of the defining degrees. From this it follows that there exists only a finite number of Hilbert functions associated with reduced algebras over an algebraically closed field with a given arithmetic degree and dimension. A good bound is also given for the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of initial ideals which depends neither on term orders nor on the coordinates and holds for any field.

     

Uniqueness for the homogeneous Dirichlet Willmore boundary value problem

We give a sufficient condition for curves on a plane or on a sphere such that if these give the boundary of a Willmore surface touching tangentially along the boundary the plane or the sphere respectively, the surface is necessarily a piece of the plane or a piece of the sphere. The condition we require is that the curves bound a strictly star-shaped domain with respect to the Euclidean geometry in the plane and with respect to the spherical geometry in the sphere, respectively.     

On coefficients of polynomials over finite fields

In this paper we study the relation between coefficients of a polynomial over finite field Fq and the moved elements by the mapping that induces the polynomial. The relation is established by a special system of linear equations. Using this relation we give the lower bound on the number of nonzero coefficients of polynomial that depends on the number m of moved elements. Moreover we show that there exist permutation polynomials of special form that achieve this bound when m|q−1. In the other direction, we show that if the number of moved elements is small then there is an recurrence relation among these coefficients. Using these recurrence relations, we improve the lower bound of nonzero coefficients when m?q−1 and . As a byproduct, we show that the moved elements must satisfy certain polynomial equations if the mapping induces a polynomial such that there are only two nonzero coefficients out of 2m consecutive coefficients. Finally we provide an algorithm to compute the coefficients of the polynomial induced by a given mapping with O(q3/2) operations.     

On second-order periodic elliptic operators in divergence form

We consider second-order, strongly elliptic, operators with complex coefficients in divergence form on . We assume that the coefficients are all periodic with a common period. If the coefficients are continuous we derive Gaussian bounds, with the correct small and large time asymptotic behaviour, on the heat kernel and all its H?lder derivatives. Moreover, we show that the first-order Riesz transforms are bounded on the -spaces with . Secondly if the coefficients are H?lder continuous we prove that the first-order derivatives of the kernel satisfy good Gaussian bounds. Then we establish that the second-order derivatives exist and satisfy good bounds if, and only if, the coefficients are divergence-free or if, and only if, the second-order Riesz transforms are bounded. Finally if the third-order derivatives exist with good bounds then the coefficients must be constant. Received in final form: 28 February 2000 / Published online: 17 May 2001     

Binomial arithmetical rank of lattice ideals

 In this paper, we will show that a lattice ideal is a complete intersection if and only if its binomial arithmetical rank equals its height, if the characteristic of the base field k is zero. And we will give the condition that a binomial ideal equals a lattice ideal up to radical in the case of char k=0. Further, we will study the upper bound of the binomial arithmetical rank of lattice ideals and give a sharp bound for the lattice ideals of codimension two. Received: 12 June 2001 / Revised version: 22 July 2002     

Approximation and Complexity: Liouvillean-Type Theorems for Linear Differential Equations on an Interval

Let u,v be solutions on an interval I of linear differential equations (LDEs) P=0 , Q=0 , respectively. We obtain a lower bound on the approximation of v by u in terms of bounds on the coefficients of LDE S _i =0 (for several i ), satisfied by the i th derivative of v and by the i th derivative of a basis of the LDE P=0 . One could view this result as a differential analog of the Liouville theorem which states that two different algebraic numbers are well separated if they satisfy algebraic equations with small enough integer coefficients. Unlike the algebraic situation, in the differential setting, in order to bound from below the difference |u-v| , we need to involve not only the coefficients of P,Q themselves, but also those of S _i . September 22, 2000. Final version received: March 11, 2001.     

A Moebius characterization of Veronese surfaces in $S^n$

Let be an umbilic-free submanifold in with I and II as the first and second fundamental forms. An important Moebius invariant for in Moebius differential geometry is the so-called Moebius form , defined by , where is a local basis of the tangent bundle with dual basis , is a local basis of the normal bundle, is the mean curvature vector and . In this paper we prove that if is an umbilics-free immersion of 2-sphere with vanishing Moebius form , then there exists a Moebius transformation and a 2k-equator with such that is the Veronese surface. Received August 12, 1999 / Published online March 12, 2001     

Approximation of the Normal Vector Field and the Area of a Smooth Surface

This paper deals with the comparison of the normal vector field of a smooth surface S with the normal vector field of another surface differentiable almost everywhere. The main result gives an upper bound on angles between the normals of S and the normals of a triangulation T close to S. This upper bound is expressed in terms of the geometry of T, the curvature of S and the Hausdorff distance between both surfaces. This kind of result is really useful: in particular, results of the approximation of the normal vector field of a smooth surface S can induce results of the approximation of the area; indeed, in a very general case (T is only supposed to be locally the graph of a lipschitz function), if we know the angle between the normals of both surfaces, then we can explicitly express the area of S in terms of geometrical invariants of T, the curvature of S and of the Hausdorff distance between both surfaces. We also apply our results in surface reconstruction: we obtain convergence results when T is the restricted Delaunay triangulation of an -sample of S; using Chews algorithm, we also build sequences of triangulations inscribed in S whose curvature measures tend to the curvatures measures of S.     

On the approximation of a smooth surface with a triangulated mesh

We approximate the normals and the area of a smooth surface with the normals and the area of a triangulated mesh whose vertices belong to the smooth surface. Both approximations only depend on the triangulated mesh (which is supposed to be known), on an upper bound on the smooth surface's curvature, on an upper bound on its reach (which is linked to the local feature size) and on an upper bound on the Hausdorff distance between both surfaces.

We show in particular that the upper bound on the error of the normals is better when triangles are right-angled (even if there are small angles). We do not need every angle to be quite large. We just need each triangle of the triangulated mesh to contain at least one angle whose sinus is large enough.     

Wetting barriers

Wetting barriers are edges or lines of a solid surface where different materials meet each other. Typical questions are how much of a fluid rests in a capillary tube or how much can piled up on a glass. We will derive a necessary condition which must be satisfied if a capillary surface hangs on a wetting barrier and if it defines a weak local minimum of the associated energy functional. In general, this functional is not smooth and the set of admissible variations is not a linear space. Then, we derive an eigenvalue criterion which provides a sufficient condition for a given capillary surface to be a weak local minimizer of the associated energy functional. Received: 18 December 2000 / Accepted: 7 June 2001 / Published online: 19 October 2001     

Convergence analysis of a multigrid method for convection–diffusion equations

Summary. This paper is concerned with the convergence analysis of robust multigrid methods for convection-diffusion problems. We consider a finite difference discretization of a 2D model convection-diffusion problem with constant coefficients and Dirichlet boundary conditions. For the approximate solution of this discrete problem a multigrid method based on semicoarsening, matrix-dependent prolongation and restriction and line smoothers is applied. For a multigrid W-cycle we prove an upper bound for the contraction number in the euclidean norm which is smaller than one and independent of the mesh size and the diffusion/convection ratio. For the contraction number of a multigrid V-cycle a bound is proved which is uniform for a class of convection-dominated problems. The analysis is based on linear algebra arguments only. Received April 26, 2000 / Published online June 20, 2001     

Generalized Thrackle Drawings of Non-bipartite Graphs

A graph drawing is called a generalized thrackle if every pair of edges meets an odd number of times. In a previous paper, we showed that a bipartite graph G can be drawn as a generalized thrackle on an oriented closed surface M if and only if G can be embedded in M. In this paper, we use Lins’ notion of a parity embedding and show that a non-bipartite graph can be drawn as a generalized thrackle on an oriented closed surface M if and only if there is a parity embedding of G in a closed non-orientable surface of Euler characteristic χ(M)−1. As a corollary, we prove a sharp upper bound for the number of edges of a simple generalized thrackle.     

Polarization tensors of planar domains as functions of the admittivity contrast

(Electric) polarization tensors describe part of the leading order term of asymptotic voltage perturbations caused by low volume fraction inhomogeneities of the electrical properties of a medium. They depend on the geometry of the support of the inhomogeneities and on their admittivity contrast. Corresponding asymptotic formulas are of particular interest in the design of reconstruction algorithms for determining the locations and the material properties of inhomogeneities inside a body from measurements of current flows and associated voltage potentials on the body’s surface. In this work, we consider the two-dimensional case only and provide an analytic representation of the polarization tensor in terms of spectral properties of the double layer integral operator associated with the support of simply connected conductivity inhomogeneities. Furthermore, we establish that an (infinitesimal) simply connected inhomogeneity has the shape of an ellipse, if and only if the polarization tensor is a rational function of the admittivity contrast with at most two poles whose residues satisfy a certain algebraic constraint. We also use the analytic representation to provide a proof of the so-called Hashin–Shtrikman bounds for polarization tensors; a similar approach has been taken previously by Golden and Papanicolaou and Kohn and Milton in the context of anisotropic composite materials.     

The KP hierarchy, branched covers, and triangulations

The KP hierarchy is a completely integrable system of quadratic, partial differential equations that generalizes the KdV hierarchy. A linear combination of Schur functions is a solution to the KP hierarchy if and only if its coefficients satisfy the Plücker relations from geometry. We give a solution to the Plücker relations involving products of variables marking contents for a partition, and thus give a new proof of a content product solution to the KP hierarchy, previously given by Orlov and Shcherbin. In our main result, we specialize this content product solution to prove that the generating series for a general class of transitive ordered factorizations in the symmetric group satisfies the KP hierarchy. These factorizations appear in geometry as encodings of branched covers, and thus by specializing our transitive factorization result, we are able to prove that the generating series for two classes of branched covers satisfies the KP hierarchy. For the first of these, the double Hurwitz series, this result has been previously given by Okounkov. The second of these, that we call the m-hypermap series, contains the double Hurwitz series polynomially, as the leading coefficient in m. The m-hypermap series also specializes further, first to the series for hypermaps and then to the series for maps, both in an orientable surface. For the latter series, we apply one of the KP equations to obtain a new and remarkably simple recurrence for triangulations in a surface of given genus, with a given number of faces. This recurrence leads to explicit asymptotics for the number of triangulations with given genus and number of faces, in recent work by Bender, Gao and Richmond.     

An oscillatory integral estimate associated to rational phases

Let R(t)=P(t)/Q(t) be a quotient of real polynomials. We show that ∫exp(iR(t)) dt/t has a uniform bound with a bound depending only on the degrees of P and Q and not on their coefficients. Also L^P estimates are obtained for certain associated singular integral operators.     

Separable Groupoid Rings

We show that groupoid rings are separable over their ring of coefficients if and only if the groupoid is finite and the orders of the associated principal groups are invertible in the ring of coefficients. We use this to show that if we are given a finite groupoid, then the associated groupoid ring is semisimple (or hereditary) if and only if the ring of coefficients is semisimple (or hereditary) and the orders of the principal groups are invertible in the ring of coefficients. To this end, we extend parts of the theory of graded rings and modules from the group graded case to the category graded, and, hence, groupoid graded situation. In particular, we show that strongly groupoid graded rings are separable over their principal components if and only if the image of the trace map contains the identity.     

Square roots of elliptic second order divergence operators on strongly Lipschitz domains: $L^p$ theory

We study estimates for square roots of second order elliptic non necessarily selfadjoint operators in divergence form on Lipschitz domains subject to Dirichlet or to Neumann boundary conditions, pursuing our work [4] where we considered operators on . We obtain among other things for all if L is real symmetric and the domain bounded, which is new for . We also obtain similar results for perturbations of constant coefficients operators. Our methods rely on a singular integral representation, Calderón-Zygmund theory and quadratic estimates. A feature of this study is the use of a commutator between the resolvent of the Laplacian (Dirichlet and Neumann) and partial derivatives which carries the geometry of the boundary. Received: 12 January 2000 / Published online: 4 May 2001