Estimates for solutions of quasilinear problems with dead cores

A Rayleigh-Faber-Krahn type inequality is used to derive bounds for boundary value problems appearing in reaction-diffusion problems where the reactant is consumed. Interesting quantities are the minimum of the solution and the measure of the set where it vanishes. The proofs are rather elementary and apply to problems possessing solutions in a weak sense.     

Writing certain commutators as products of cubes in free groups

Let Cu(γ) be the minimal number of cubes required to express an element γ of a free group F. We establish a method for showing that certain equations do not have solutions in free groups. Using it, we find Cu(γ) for certain elements of the derived subgroup of F. If is the wreath product of F by the infinite cyclic group, we also show that every element of W′ is a product of at most one commutator and three cubes in W.     

Semilinear elliptic problems and concentration compactness on non-compact Riemannian manifolds

Existence of solution for semilinear problem with the Laplace-Beltrami operator on non-compact Riemannian manifolds with rich symmetries is proved by concentration compactness based on actions of the manifold's isometry group.     

Length spectra and<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-spectra of compact flat manifolds

We compare and contrast various length vs Laplace spectra of compact flat Riemannian manifolds. As a major consequence we produce the first examples of pairs of closed manifolds that are isospectral on p-forms for some p ≠ 0, but have different weak length spectrum. For instance, we give a pair of 4-dimensional manifolds that are isospectral on p-forms for p = 1, 3and we exhibit a length of a closed geodesic that occurs in one manifold but cannot occur in the other. We also exhibit examples of this kind having different injectivity radius and different first eigenvalue of the Laplace spectrum on functions. These results follow from a method that uses integral roots of the Krawtchouk polynomials. We prove a Poisson summation formula relating the p-eigenvalue spectrum with the lengths of closed geodesics. As a consequence we show that the Laplace spectrum on functions determines the lengths of closed geodesics and, by an example, that it does not determine the complex lengths. Furthermore we show that orientability is an audible property for closed flat manifolds. We give a variety of examples, for instance, a pair of manifolds isospectral on functions (resp. Sunada isospectral) with different multiplicities of length of closed geodesies and a pair with the same multiplicities of complex lengths of closed geodesies and not isospectral on p-forms for any p, or else isospectral on p-forms for only one value of p ≠ 0.     

Semilinear elliptic problems with mixed Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions

This work deals with the analysis of problems

     

Weak compactness in certain star-shift invariant subspaces

The context of much of the work in this paper is that of a backward-shift invariant subspace of the form , where B is some infinite Blaschke product. We address (but do not fully answer) the question: For which B can one find a (convergent) sequence in K_B such that the sequence of real measures converges weak-star to some nontrivial singular measure on ? We show that, in order for this to hold, K_B must contain functions with nontrivial singular inner factors. And in a rather special setting, we show that this is also sufficient. Much of the paper is devoted to finding conditions (on B) that guarantee that K_B has no functions with nontrivial singular inner factors. Our primary result in this direction is based on the “geometry” of the zero set of B.     

Sub-Bergman Hilbert spaces in the unit disk, II

For a finite Blaschke product B let T_B denote the analytic multiplication operator (also called a Toeplitz operator) on the Bergman space of the unit disk. We show that the defect operators and both map the Bergman space to the Hardy space and the Hardy space to the Dirichlet space.     

An obstruction to the positivity of relative Yamabe invariants

For a supergroup , we describe an obstruction to the existence of positive scalar curvature metrics with minimal boundary condition on a compact n-dimensional -manifold W with nonempty boundary M, , in terms of the bordism class [M] in the Stolz obstruction group associated to [St2]. In par ticular, when W is a 5-dimensional spin manifold and the -invariant of a connected component of M is nonzero, we prove that W does not admit a positive scalar curvature metric with minimal boundary condition. Received: 4 July 2001; in final form: 5 February 2002 / Published online: 8 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Partially supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, No. 11640070.     

Harmonicity and gauge transformations in dimension 3

Let (M, ) be a contact manifold. Consider a particular class of gauge transformations for the contact form . In this note we study the harmonicity of the identity map of the manifold M, of dimension three, endowed with the Webster metric g and with another metric $\widetilde{g}$ obtained from g after a gauge transformation.