arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Enrico Valdinoci.
As well known, classical catenoids in ${\mathbf{R}}^3$ possess logarithmic growth at infinity. In this note we prove that the case of nonlocal minimal surfaces is significantly different, and indeed all nonlocal catenoids must grow at least linearly. More generally, we prove that stationary sets for the nonlocal perimeter functional which grow sublinearly at infinity are necessarily half-spaces.
We consider the volume preserving geometric evolution of the boundary of a set under fractional mean curvature. We show that smooth convex solutions maintain their fractional curvatures bounded for all times, and the long time asymptotics approach round spheres. The proofs are based on apriori estimates on the inner and outer radii of the solutions.
We consider a non-local phase transition equation set in a periodic medium and we construct solutions whose interface stays in a slab of prescribed direction and universal width. The solutions constructed also enjoy a local minimality property with respect to a suitable non-local energy functional.
We consider an energy functional combining the square of the local oscillation of a one--dimensional function with a double well potential. We establish the existence of minimal heteroclinic solutions connecting the two wells of the potential. This existence result cannot be accomplished by standard methods, due to the lack of compactness properties. In addition, we investigate the main properties of these heteroclinic connections. We show that these minimizers are monotone, and therefore they satisfy a suitable Euler-Lagrange equation. We also prove that, differently from the classical cases arising in ordinary differential equations, in this context the heteroclinic connections are not necessarily smooth, and not even continuous (in fact, they can be piecewise constant). Also, we show that heteroclinics are not necessarily unique up to a translation, which is also in contrast with the classical setting. Furthermore, we investigate the associated Dirichlet problem, studying existence, uniqueness and partial regularity properties, providing explicit solutions in terms of the external data and of the forcing source, and exhibiting an example of discontinuous solution.
We show that any given function can be approximated with arbitrary precision by solutions of linear, time-fractional equations of any prescribed order. This extends a recent result by Claudia Bucur, which was obtained for time-fractional derivatives of order less than one, to the case of any fractional order of differentiation. In addition, our result applies also to the $ψ$-Caputo-stationary case, and it will provide one of the building blocks of a forthcoming paper in which we will establish general approximation results by operators of any order involving anisotropic superpositions of classical, space-fractional and time-fractional diffusions.
We prove that any given function can be smoothly approximated by functions lying in the kernel of a linear operator involving at least one fractional component. The setting in which we work is very general, since it takes into account anomalous diffusion, with possible fractional components in both space and time. The operators studied comprise the case of the sum of classical and fractional Laplacians, possibly of different orders, in the space variables, and classical or fractional derivatives in the time variables. This type of approximation results shows that space-fractional and time-fractional equations exhibit a variety of solutions which is much richer and more abundant than in the case of classical diffusion.
In this paper, we consider the asymptotic behavior of the fractional mean curvature when $s\to 0^+$. Moreover, we deal with the behavior of $s$-minimal surfaces when the fractional parameter $s\in(0,1)$ is small, in a bounded and connected open set with $C^2$ boundary $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^n$. We classify the behavior of $s$-minimal surfaces with respect to the fixed exterior data (i.e. the $s$-minimal set fixed outside of $Ω$). So, for $s$ small and depending on the data at infinity, the $s$-minimal set can be either empty in $Ω$, fill all $Ω$, or possibly develop a wildly oscillating boundary. Also, we prove the continuity of the fractional mean curvature in all variables, for $s\in (0,1]$. Using this, we see that as the parameter $s$ varies, the fractional mean curvature may change sign.
We consider an elliptic polyharmonic problem of any order which takes place in a punctured bounded domain with Navier conditions. We prove that if the domain is convex in one direction and symmetric with respect to the reflections induced by the normal hyperpane to such a direction, then the solution is necessarily symmetric under this reflection and monotone in the corresponding direction.
Using a classical technique introduced by Achi E. Brandt for elliptic equations, we study a general class of nonlocal equations obtained as a superposition of classical and fractional operators in different variables. We obtain that the increments of the derivative of the solution in the direction of a variable experiencing classical diffusion are controlled linearly, with a logarithmic correction. From this, we obtain Hölder estimates for the solution.
We study an optimization problem with SPDE constraints, which has the peculiarity that the control parameter $s$ is the $s$-th power of the diffusion operator in the state equation. Well-posedness of the state equation and differentiability properties with respect to the fractional parameter $s$ are established. We show that under certain conditions on the noise, optimality conditions for the control problem can be established.
We consider an evolution equation whose time-diffusion is of fractional type and we provide decay estimates in time for the $L^s$-norm of the solutions in a bounded domain. The spatial operator that we take into account is very general and comprises classical local and nonlocal diffusion equations.
Using energy methods, we prove some power-law and exponential decay estimates for classical and nonlocal evolutionary equations. The results obtained are framed into a general setting, which comprise, among the others, equations involving both standard and Caputo time-derivative, complex valued magnetic operators, fractional porous media equations and nonlocal Kirchhoff operators. Both local and fractional space diffusion are taken into account, possibly in a nonlinear setting. The different quantitative behaviors, which distinguish polynomial decays from exponential ones, depend heavily on the structure of the time-derivative involved in the equation.
We discuss fattening phenomenon for the evolution of planar curves according to their nonlocal curvature. More precisely, we consider a class of generalized curvatures which correspond to the first variation of suitable nonlocal perimeter functionals, defined in terms of an interaction kernel $K$, which is symmetric, nonnegative, possibly singular at the origin, and satisfies appropriate integrability conditions. We prove a general result about uniqueness of the geometric evolutions starting from regular sets with positive $K$-curvature and we discuss the fattening phenomenon for the evolution starting from the cross, showing that this phenomenon is very sensitive to the strength of the interactions. As a matter of fact, we show that the fattening of the cross occurs for kernels with sufficiently large mass near the origin, while for kernels that are sufficiently weak near the origin such a fattening phenomenon does not occur. We also provide some further results in the case of the fractional mean curvature flow, showing that strictly starshaped sets have a unique geometric evolution. Moreover, we exhibit two illustrative examples of closed nonregular curves, the first with a Lipschitz-type singularity and the second with a cusp-type singularity, given by two tangent circles of equal radius, whose evolution develops fattening in the first case, and is uniquely defined in the second, thus remarking the high sensitivity of the fattening phenomenon in terms of the regularity of the initial datum. The latter example is in striking contrast to the classical case of the (local) curvature flow, where two tangent circles always develop fattening. As a byproduct of our analysis, we provide also a simple proof of the fact that the cross is not a $K$-minimal set for the nonlocal perimeter functional associated to $K$.
We consider a planar geometric flow in which the normal velocity is a nonlocal variant of the curvature. The flow is not scaling invariant and in fact has different behaviors at different spatial scales, thus producing phenomena that are different with respect to both the classical mean curvature flow and the fractional mean curvature flow. In particular, we give examples of neckpinch singularity formation, and we discuss convexity properties of the evolution. We also take into account traveling waves for this geometric flow, showing that a new family of $C^{1,1}$ and convex traveling sets arises in this setting.
We prove that $C^{1,α}$ $s$-minimal surfaces are automatically $C^\infty$. For this, we develop a new bootstrap regularity theory for solutions of integro-differential equations of very general type, which we believe is of independent interest.
Recently, several experiments have demonstrated the existence of fractional diffusion in the neuronal transmission occurringin the Purkinje cells, whose malfunctioning is known to be related to the lack of voluntary coordination and the appearance of tremors. Also, a classical mathematical feature is that (fractional) parabolic equations possess smoothing effects, in contrast with the case of hyperbolic equations, which typically exhibit shocks and discontinuities. In this paper, we show how a simple toy-model of a highly ramified structure, somehow inspired by that of the Purkinje cells, may produce a fractional diffusion via the superposition of travelling waves that solve a hyperbolic equation. This could suggest that the high ramification of the Purkinje cells might have provided an evolutionary advantage of "smoothing" the transmission of signals and avoiding shock propagations (at the price of slowing a bit such transmission). Although an experimental confirmation of the possibility of such evolutionary advantage goes well beyond the goals of this paper, we think that it is intriguing, as a mathematical counterpart, to consider the time fractional diffusion as arising from the superposition of delayed travelling waves in highly ramified transmission media. The case of a travelling concave parabola with sufficiently small curvature is explicitly computed. The new link that we propose between time fractional diffusion and hyperbolic equation also provides a novelty with respect to the usual paradigm relating time fractional diffusion with parabolic equations in the limit. This paper is written in such a way as to be of interest to both biologists and mathematician alike. In order to accomplish this aim, both complete explanations of the objects considered and detailed lists of references are provided.
We consider the fractional Laplace framework and provide models and theorems related to nonlocal diffusion phenomena. Some applications are presented, including: a simple probabilistic interpretation, water waves, crystal dislocations, nonlocal phase transitions, nonlocal minimal surfaces and Schrödinger equations. Furthermore, an example of an $s$-harmonic function, the harmonic extension and some insight on a fractional version of a classical conjecture formulated by De Giorgi are presented. Although this book aims at gathering some introductory material on the applications of the fractional Laplacian, some proofs and results are original. Also, the work is self contained, and the reader is invited to consult the rich bibliography for further details, whenever a subject is of interest.
We consider an evolution equation inspired by a model in peridynamics, with a singular pairwise interaction force term, and we give global in time existence, uniqueness and stability results for the Cauchy problem.