arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Henrik Shahgholian.
In this paper we study vector-valued almost minimizers of the energy functional $$ \int_D\left(|\nabla\mathbf{u}|^2+2|\mathbf{u}|\right)\,dx . $$ We establish the regularity for both minimizers and the "regular" part of the free boundary. The analysis of the free boundary is based on Weiss-type monotonicity formula and the epiperimetric inequality for the energy minimizers.
We study a question arising in inverse scattering theory: given a penetrable obstacle, does there exist an incident wave that does not scatter? We show that every penetrable obstacle with real-analytic boundary admits such an incident wave. At zero frequency, we use quadrature domains to show that there are also obstacles with inward cusps having this property. In the converse direction, under a nonvanishing condition for the incident wave, we show that there is a dichotomy for boundary points of any penetrable obstacle having this property: either the boundary is regular, or the complement of the obstacle has to be very thin near the point. These facts are proved by invoking results from the theory of free boundary problems.
Given a global 1-homogeneous minimizer $U_0$ to the Alt-Caffarelli energy functional, with $sing(F(U_0)) = \{0\}$, we provide a foliation of the half-space $\R^{n} \times [0,+\infty)$ with dilations of graphs of global minimizers $\underline U \leq U_0 \leq \bar U$ with analytic free boundaries at distance 1 from the origin.
In this paper we study the following parabolic system \begin{equation*} Δ\u -\partial_t \u =|\u|^{q-1}\u\,χ_{\{ |\u|>0 \}}, \qquad \u = (u^1, \cdots , u^m) \ , \end{equation*} with free boundary $\partial \{|\u | >0\}$. For $0\leq q<1$, we prove optimal growth rate for solutions $\u $ to the above system near free boundary points, and show that in a uniform neighbourhood of any a priori well-behaved free boundary point the free boundary is $C^{1, α}$ in space directions and half-Lipschitz in the time direction.
We consider vector-valued solutions to a linear transmission problem, and we prove that Lipschitz-regularity on one phase is transmitted to the next phase. More exactly, given a solution $u:B_1\subset \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}^m$ to the elliptic system \begin{equation*} \mbox{div} ((A + (B-A)χ_D )\nabla u) = 0 \quad \text{in }B_1, \end{equation*} where $A$ and $B$ are Dini continuous, uniformly elliptic matrices, we prove that if $\nabla u \in L^{\infty} (D)$ then $u$ is Lipschitz in $B_{1/2}$. A similar result is also derived for the parabolic counterpart of this problem.
We prove a boundary Harnack principle in Lipschitz domains with small constant for fully nonlinear and $p$-Laplace type equations with a right hand side, as well as for the Laplace equation on nontangentially accessible domains under extra conditions. The approach is completely new and gives a systematic approach for proving similar results for a variety of equations and geometries.
We consider the semilinear problem \[ Δu = λ_+ \left(-\log u^+\right) 1_{\{u > 0\}} - λ_- \left(-\log u^- \right) 1_{\{u < 0\}} \qquad \hbox{ in } B_1, \] where $B_1$ is the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and assume $λ_+, λ_- > 0$. Using a monotonicity formula argument, we prove an optimal regularity result for solutions: $\nabla u$ is a log-Lipschitz function. This problem introduces two main difficulties. The first is the lack of invariance in the scaling and blow-up of the problem. The other (more serious) issue is a term in the Weiss energy which is potentially non-integrable unless one already knows the optimal regularity of the solution: this puts us in a catch-22 situation.
We study the system $-Δ\mathbf{u}=| \mathbf{u}|^{α-1} \mathbf{u}$ with $1<α\leq\frac{n+2}{n-2}$, where $ \mathbf{u}=(u_1,\dots,u_m)$, $m\geq 1$, is a $C^2$ nonnegative function that develops an isolated singularity in a domain of $\mathbb{R}^n$, $n\geq 3$. Due to the multiplicity of the components of $ \mathbf{u}$, we observe a new Pohozaev invariant other than the usual one in the scalar case, and also a new class of singular solutions provided that the new invariant is nontrivial. Aligned with the classical theory of the scalar equation, we classify the solutions on the whole space as well as the punctured space, and analyze the exact asymptotic behavior of local solutions around the isolated singularity. On the technical level, we adopt the method of the moving spheres and the balanced-energy-type monotonicity functionals.
Consider the following coupled elliptic system of equations \begin{equation*} \label{} (-Δ)^s u_i = (u^2_1+\cdots+u^2_m)^{\frac{p-1}{2}} u_i \quad \text{in} \ \ \mathbb{R}^n , \end{equation*} where $0 1$, $m\ge1$, $u=(u_i)_{i=1}^m$ and $u_i:\mathbb R^n\to \mathbb R$. The qualitative behavior of solutions of the above system has been studied from various perspectives in the literature including the free boundary problems and the classification of solutions. For the case of local scalar equation, that is when $m=1$ and $s=1$, Gidas and Spruck in \cite{gs} and later Caffarelli, Gidas and Spruck in \cite{cgs} provided the classification of solutions for Sobolev sub-critical and critical exponents. More recently, for the case of local system of equations that is when $m\ge1$ and $s=1$ a similar classification result is given by Druet, Hebey and Vétois in \cite{dhv} and references therein. In this paper, we derive monotonicity formulae for entire solutions of the above local, when $s=1,2$, and nonlocal, when $0<s<1$ and $1<s<2$, system. These monotonicity formulae are of great interests due to the fact that a counterpart of the celebrated monotonicity formula of Alt-Caffarelli-Friedman \cite{acf} seems to be challenging to derive for system of equations. Then, we apply these formulae to give a classification of finite Morse index solutions. In the end, we provide an open problem in regards to monotonicity formulae for Lane-Emden systems.
We introduce a new boundary Harnack principle in Lipschitz domains for equations with right hand side. Our approach, which uses comparisons and blow-ups, will adapt to more general domains as well as other types of operators. We prove the principle for divergence form elliptic equations with lower order terms including zero order terms. The inclusion of a zero order term appears to be new even in the absence of a right hand side.
In this paper we present a survey concerning unconstrained free boundary problems of type $$ \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} F_1(D^2u,\nabla u,u,x)=0 & \text{in }B_1 \cap Ω,\\ F_2 (D^2 u,\nabla u,u,x)=0 & \text{in }B_1\setminusΩ,\\ u \in \mathbb{S}(B_1), \end{array} \right. $$ where $B_1$ is the unit ball, $Ω$ is an unknown open set, $F_1, F_2$ are elliptic operators (admitting regular solutions), and $\mathbb{S}$ is a functions space to be specified in each case. Our main objective is to discuss a unifying approach to the optimal regularity of solutions to the above matching problems, and list several open problems in this direction.
We study the semilinear elliptic equation \begin{equation*} -Δu=u^α|\log u|^β\quad\text{in }B_1\setminus\{0\}, \end{equation*} where $B_1\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ with $n\geq 3$, $\frac{n}{n-2} < α< \frac{n+2}{n-2}$ and $-\infty<β<\infty$. Our main result establishes that nonnegative solution $u\in C^2(B_1\setminus\{0\})$ of the above equation either has a removable singularity at the origin or behaves like \begin{equation*} u(x) = A(1+o(1)) |x|^{-\frac{2}{α-1}} \left(\log \frac{1}{|x|}\right)^{-\fracβ{α-1}}\quad\text{as } x\rightarrow 0, \end{equation*} with \begin{equation*} A=\left[\left(\frac{2}{α-1}\right)^{1-β}\left(n-2-\frac{2}{α-1}\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{α-1}}. \end{equation*}
We introduce a new lattice growth model, which we call boundary sandpile. The model amounts to potential-theoretic redistribution of a given initial mass on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ ($d\geq 2$) onto the boundary of an (a priori) unknown domain. The latter evolves through sandpile dynamics, and has the property that the mass on the boundary is forced to stay below a prescribed threshold. Since finding the domain is part of the problem, the redistribution process is a discrete model of a free boundary problem, whose continuum limit is yet to be understood. We prove general results concerning our model. These include canonical representation of the model in terms of the smallest super-solution among a certain class of functions, uniform Lipschitz regularity of the scaled odometer function, and hence the convergence of a subsequence of the odometer and the visited sites, discrete symmetry properties, as well as directional monotonicity of the odometer function. The latter (in part) implies the Lipschitz regularity of the free boundary of the sandpile. As a direct application of some of the methods developed in this paper, combined with earlier results on classical Abelian sandpile, we show that the boundary of the scaling limit of Abelian sandpile is locally a Lipschitz graph.
We study the local behavior of the nodal sets of the solutions to elliptic quasilinear equations with nonlinear conductivity part, \begin{equation*} \operatorname{div}(A_s(x,u)\nabla u)=\operatorname{div}{\vec f}(x), \end{equation*} where $A_s(x,u)$ has "broken" derivatives of order $s\geq 0$, such as \begin{equation*} A_s(x,u) = a(x) + b(x)(u^+)^s, \end{equation*} with $(u^+)^0$ being understood as the characteristic function on $\{u>0\}$. The vector ${\vec f}(x)$ is assumed to be $C^α$ in case $s=0$, and $C^{1,α}$ (or higher) in case $s>0$. Using geometric methods, we prove almost complete results (in analogy with standard PDEs) concerning the behavior of the nodal sets. More exactly, we show that the nodal sets, where solutions have (linear) nondegeneracy, are locally smooth graphs. Degenerate points are shown to have structures that follow the lines of arguments as that of the nodal sets for harmonic functions, and general PDEs.
In this paper we continue to study a non-local free boundary problem arising in financial bubbles. We focus on the parabolic counterpart of the bubble problem and suggest an iterative algorithm which consists of a sequence of parabolic obstacle problems at each step to be solved, that in turn gives the next obstacle function in the iteration. The convergence of the proposed algorithm is proved. Moreover, we consider the finite difference scheme for this algorithm and obtain its convergence. At the end of the paper we present and discuss computational results.
For a periodic vector field $\bf F$, let ${\bf X}^ε$ solve the dynamical system \begin{equation*} \frac{d{\bf X}^ε}{dt} = {\bf F}\left(\frac {{\bf X}^ε}ε\right) . \end{equation*} In \cite{DeGiorgi} Ennio De Giorgi enquiers whether from the existence of the limit ${\bf X}^0(t):=\lim\limits_{ε\to 0}{\bf X}^ε(t)$ one can conclude that $ \frac{d{\bf X}^0}{dt}= constant$. Our main result settles this conjecture under fairly general assumptions on $\bf F$, which may also depend on $t$-variable. Once the above problem is solved, one can apply the result to the transport equation, in a standard way. This is also touched upon in the text to follow.
The main purpose of the present paper is to establish a link between quadrature surfaces (potential theoretic concept) and sandpile dynamics (Laplacian growth models). For this aim, we introduce a new model of Laplacian growth on the lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ $(d\geq 2)$ which continuously deforms occupied regions of the \emph{divisible sandpile} model of Levine and Peres, by redistributing the total mass of the system onto $\frac 1m$-sub-level sets of the odometer which is a function counting total emissions of mass from lattice vertices. In free boundary terminology this goes in parallel with singular perturbation, which is known to converge to a Bernoulli type free boundary. We prove that models, generated from a single source, have a scaling limit, if the threshold $m$ is fixed. Moreover, this limit is a ball, and the entire mass of the system is being redistributed onto an annular ring of thickness $\frac 1m$. By compactness argument we show that, when $m$ tends to infinity sufficiently slowly with respect to the scale of the model, then in this case also there is scaling limit which is a ball, with the mass of the system being uniformly distributed onto the boundary of that ball, and hence we recover a quadrature surface in this case. Depending on the speed of decay of $m$, the visited set of the sandpile interpolates between spherical and polygonal shapes. Finding a precise characterisation of this shape-transition phenomenon seems to be a considerable challenge, which we cannot address at this moment.
In this paper, we prove local $C^{1}$ regularity of free boundaries for the double obstacle problem with an upper obstacle $ψ$, \begin{align*} Δu &=fχ_{Ω(u) \cap\{ u< ψ\} }+ Δψχ_{Ω(u)\cap \{u=ψ\}}, \qquad u\le ψ\quad \text { in } B_1, \end{align*} where $Ω(u)=B_1 \setminus \left( \{u=0\} \cap \{ \nabla u =0\}\right)$ under a thickness assumption for $u$ and $ψ$.