Towards the Willmore conjecture

We develop a variety of approaches, mainly using integral geometry, to proving that the integral of the square of the mean curvature of a torus immersed in must always take a value no less than . Our partial results, phrased mainly within the -formulation of the problem, are typically strongest when the Gauss curvature can be controlled in terms of extrinsic curvatures or when the torus enjoys further properties related to its distribution within the ambient space (see Sect. 3). Corollaries include a recent result of Ros [20] confirming the Willmore conjecture for surfaces invariant under the antipodal map, and a strengthening of the expected results for flat tori. The value arises in this work in a number of different ways – as the volume (or renormalised volume) of or , and in terms of the length of shortest nontrivial loops in subgroups of SO(4). Received April 26, 1999 / Accepted January 14, 2000 / Published online June 28, 2000     

Existence for evolutionary problems with linear growth by stability methods

We establish that solutions to the Cauchy–Dirichlet problem

${?}_{t}u?\mathrm{div}(D_{\xi }f(x,Du))=0$

for functionals $f:\mathrm{\Omega }\times {\mathbb{R}}^{N\times n}\to [0,\infty )$ of linear growth can be obtained as limits of solutions to flows with p-growth in the limit $p\downarrow 1$. The result can be interpreted on the one hand as a stability result. On the other hand it provides an existence result for general flows with linear growth.     

On the existence of oscillating solutions in non-monotone Mean-Field Games

For non-monotone single and two-populations time-dependent Mean-Field Game systems we obtain the existence of an infinite number of branches of non-trivial solutions. These non-trivial solutions are in particular shown to exhibit an oscillatory behaviour when they are close to the trivial (constant) one. The existence of such branches is derived using local and global bifurcation methods, that rely on the analysis of eigenfunction expansions of solutions to the associated linearized problem. Numerical analysis is performed on two different models to observe the oscillatory behaviour of solutions predicted by bifurcation theory, and to study further properties of branches far away from bifurcation points.     

Linear maps between C*-algebras that are *-homomorphisms at a fixed point

Let A and B be C*-algebras. A linear map T : A → B is said to be a *-homomorphism at an element z ∈ A if ab* = z in A implies T (ab*) = T (a)T (b)* = T (z), and c*d = z in A gives T (c*d) = T (c)*T (d) = T (z). Assuming that A is unital, we prove that every linear map T : A → B which is a *-homomorphism at the unit of A is a Jordan *-homomorphism. If A is simple and infinite, then we establish that a linear map T : A → B is a *-homomorphism if and only if T is a *-homomorphism at the unit of A. For a general unital C*-algebra A and a linear map T : A → B, we prove that T is a *-homomorphism if, and only if, T is a *-homomorphism at 0 and at 1. Actually if p is a non-zero projection in A, and T is a ^?-homomorphism at p and at 1 ? p, then we prove that T is a Jordan *-homomorphism. We also study bounded linear maps that are *-homomorphisms at a unitary element in A.     

The turnpike property in finite-dimensional nonlinear optimal control

Turnpike properties have been established long time ago in finite-dimensional optimal control problems arising in econometry. They refer to the fact that, under quite general assumptions, the optimal solutions of a given optimal control problem settled in large time consist approximately of three pieces, the first and the last of which being transient short-time arcs, and the middle piece being a long-time arc staying exponentially close to the optimal steady-state solution of an associated static optimal control problem. We provide in this paper a general version of a turnpike theorem, valuable for nonlinear dynamics without any specific assumption, and for very general terminal conditions. Not only the optimal trajectory is shown to remain exponentially close to a steady-state, but also the corresponding adjoint vector of the Pontryagin maximum principle. The exponential closedness is quantified with the use of appropriate normal forms of Riccati equations. We show then how the property on the adjoint vector can be adequately used in order to initialize successfully a numerical direct method, or a shooting method. In particular, we provide an appropriate variant of the usual shooting method in which we initialize the adjoint vector, not at the initial time, but at the middle of the trajectory.     

Levitin-Polyak well-posedness of variational inequalities

In this paper we consider the Levitin-Polyak well-posedness of variational inequalities. We derive a characterization of the Levitin-Polyak well-posedness by considering the size of Levitin-Polyak approximating solution sets of variational inequalities. We also show that the Levitin-Polyak well-posedness of variational inequalities is closely related to the Levitin-Polyak well-posedness of minimization problems and fixed point problems. Finally, we prove that under suitable conditions, the Levitin-Polyak well-posedness of a variational inequality is equivalent to the uniqueness and existence of its solution.     

Well-posed equilibrium problems

In this paper we introduce some notions of well-posedness for scalar equilibrium problems in complete metric spaces or in Banach spaces. As equilibrium problem is a common extension of optimization, saddle point and variational inequality problems, our definitions originates from the well-posedness concepts already introduced for these problems.We give sufficient conditions for two different kinds of well-posedness and show by means of counterexamples that these have no relationship in the general case. However, together with some additional assumptions, we show via Ekeland’s principle for bifunctions a link between them.Finally we discuss a parametric form of the equilibrium problem and introduce a well-posedness concept for it, which unifies the two different notions of well-posedness introduced in the first part.     

Two strong convergence theorems for Bregman strongly nonexpansive operators in reflexive Banach spaces

We study the convergence of two iterative algorithms for finding common fixed points of finitely many Bregman strongly nonexpansive operators in reflexive Banach spaces. Both algorithms take into account possible computational errors. We establish two strong convergence theorems and then apply them to the solution of convex feasibility, variational inequality and equilibrium problems.     

Structure of approximate solutions for discrete-time control systems arising in economic dynamics

In this work we study the structure of approximate solutions of an autonomous discrete-time control system with a compact metric space of states X which is a subset of a finite-dimensional Euclidean space. This control system is described by a nonempty closed set Ω⊂X×X which determines a class of admissible trajectories (programs) and by a bounded upper semicontinuous function v:Ω→R¹ which determines an optimality criterion. We are interested in turnpike properties of the approximate solutions which are independent of the length of the interval, for all sufficiently large intervals. Usually, in economic dynamics, the turnpike properties have been studied for systems such that all their good programs converge to a turnpike which was an interior point of Ω. In this paper we establish turnpike results for a large class of control systems for which the turnpike is not necessarily an interior point of Ω.     

Analysis of a dynamic contact problem for electro-viscoelastic cylinders

We consider a mathematical model which describes the antiplane shear deformations of a piezoelectric cylinder in frictional contact with a foundation. The process is mechanically dynamic and electrically static, the material behavior is described with a linearly electro-viscoelastic constitutive law, the contact is frictional and the foundation is assumed to be electrically conductive. Both the friction and the electrical conductivity condition on the contact surface are described with subdifferential boundary conditions. We derive a variational formulation of the problem which is of the form of a system coupling a second order hemivariational inequality for the displacement field with a time-dependent hemivariational inequality for the electric potential field. Then we prove the existence of a unique weak solution to the model. The proof is based on abstract results for second order evolutionary inclusions in Banach spaces. Finally, we present concrete examples of friction laws and electrical conductivity conditions for which our result is valid.