Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Erik Lundberg

Publications and source records attributed to Erik Lundberg.

43 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Remarks on Wilmshurst's theorem

We demonstrate counterexamples to Wilmshurst's conjecture on the valence of harmonic polynomials in the plane, and we conjecture a bound that is linear in the analytic degree for each fixed anti-analytic degree. Then we initiate a discussion of Wilmshurt's theorem in more than two dimensions, showing that if the zero set of a polynomial harmonic field is bounded then it must have codimension at least two. Examples are provided to show that this conclusion cannot be improved.

math.CV↗

An Overdetermined Problem in Potential Theory

We investigate a problem posed by L. Hauswirth, F. Hélein, and F. Pacard, namely, to characterize all the domains in the plane that admit a "roof function", i.e., a positive harmonic function which solves simultaneously a Dirichlet problem with null boundary data, and a Neumann problem with constant boundary data. Under some a priori assumptions, we show that the only three examples are the exterior of a disk, a halfplane, and a nontrivial example. We show that in four dimensions the nontrivial simply connected example does not have any axially symmetric analog containing its own axis of symmetry.

math.CV↗

Statistics on Hilbert's Sixteenth Problem

We study the statistics of the number of connected components and the volume of a random real algebraic hypersurface in RP^n defined by a Real Bombieri-Weyl distributed homogeneous polynomial of degree d. We prove that the expectation of the number of connected components of such hypersurface has order d^n, the asymptotic being in d for n fixed. We do not restrict ourselves to the random homogeneous case and we consider more generally random polynomials belonging to a window of eigenspaces of the laplacian on the sphere S^n, proving that the same asymptotic holds. As for the volume, we prove its expectation is of order d. Both these behaviors exhibit expectation of maximal order in light of Milnor's bound and the a priori bound for the volume.

math.AG↗

Non-algebraic quadrature domains

It is well known that, in the plane, the boundary of any quadrature domain (in the classical sense) coincides with the zero set of a polynomial. We show, by explicitly constructing some four-dimensional examples, that this is not always the case. This confirms, in dimension 4, a conjecture of the second author. Our method is based on the Schwarz potential and involves elliptic integrals of the third kind.

math.CV↗

Laplacian Growth, Elliptic Growth, and Singularities of the Schwarz Potential

The Schwarz function has played an elegant role in understanding and in generating new examples of exact solutions to the Laplacian growth (or "Hele- Shaw") problem in the plane. The guiding principle in this connection is the fact that "non-physical" singularities in the "oil domain" of the Schwarz function are stationary, and the "physical" singularities obey simple dynamics. We give an elementary proof that the same holds in any number of dimensions for the Schwarz potential, introduced by D. Khavinson and H. S. Shapiro [17] (1989). A generalization is also given for the so-called "elliptic growth" problem by defining a generalized Schwarz potential. New exact solutions are constructed, and we solve inverse problems of describing the driving singularities of a given flow. We demonstrate, by example, how \mathbb{C}^n - techniques can be used to locate the singularity set of the Schwarz potential. One of our methods is to prolong available local extension theorems by constructing "globalizing families". We make three conjectures in potential theory relating to our investigation.

math.AP↗

Transcendental Harmonic Mappings and Gravitational Lensing by Isothermal Galaxies

Using the Schwarz function of an ellipse, it was recently shown that galaxies with density constant on confocal ellipses can produce at most four ``bright'' images of a single source. The more physically interesting example of an isothermal galaxy has density that is constant on \emph{homothetic} ellipses. In that case bright images can be seen to correspond to zeros of a certain transcendental harmonic mapping. We use complex dynamics to give an upper bound on the total number of such zeros.

math-ph↗