arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Leonid V. Kovalev.
The Harmonic Mapping Problem asks when there exists a harmonic homeomorphism between two given domains. It arises in the theory of minimal surfaces and in calculus of variations, specifically in hyperelasticity theory. We investigate this problem for doubly connected domains in the plane, where it already presents considerable challenge and leads to several interesting open questions.
The conjecture in question concerns the existence of a harmonic homeomorphism between circular annuli A(r,R) and A(r*,R*), and is motivated in part by the existence problem for doubly-connected minimal surfaces with prescribed boundary. In 1962 J.C.C. Nitsche observed that the image annulus cannot be too thin, but it can be arbitrarily thick (even a punctured disk). Then he conjectured that for such a mapping to exist we must have the following inequality, now known as the Nitsche bound: R*/r* is greater than or equal to (R/r+r/R)/2. In this paper we give an affirmative answer to his conjecture. As a corollary, we find that among all minimal graphs over given annulus the upper slab of catenoid has the greatest conformal modulus.
A harmonic self-homeomorphism of a disk does not increase the area of any concentric disk.
We extend monotone quasiconformal mappings from dimension n to n+1 while preserving both monotonicity and quasiconformality. The extension is given explicitly by an integral operator. In the case n=1 it yields a refinement of the Beurling-Ahlfors extension.
As long ago as 1962 Nitsche conjectured that a harmonic homeomorphism $h \colon A(r,R) \to A(r_*, R_*)$ between planar annuli exists if and only if $\frac{R_*}{r_*} \ge {1/2} (\frac{R}{r} + \frac{r}{R})$. We prove this conjecture when the domain annulus is not too wide; explicitly, when $\log \frac{R}{r} \le {3/2}$. For general $A(r,R)$ the conjecture is proved under additional assumption that either $h$ or its normal derivative have vanishing average on the inner boundary circle. This is the case for the critical Nitsche mapping which yields equality in the above inequality. The Nitsche mapping represents so-called free evolution of circles of the annulus $A(r,R)$. It will be shown on the other hand that forced harmonic evolution results in greater ratio $\frac{R_*}{r_*}$. To this end, we introduce the underlying differential operators for the circular means of the forced evolution and use them to obtain sharp lower bounds of $\frac{R_*}{r_*}$.
We obtain improved regularity of homeomorphic solutions of the reduced Beltrami equation, as compared to the standard Beltrami equation. Such an improvement is not possible in terms of Holder or Sobolev regularity; instead, our results concern the generalized variation of restrictions to lines. Specifically, we prove that the restriction to any line segment has finite p-variation for all p>1 but not necessarily for p=1.
We prove local and global invertibility of Sobolev solutions of certain differential inclusions which prevent the differential matrix from having negative eigenvalues. Our results are new even for quasiregular mappings in two dimensions.
A uniqueness theorem is established for autonomous systems of ODEs, $\dot{x}=f(x)$, where $f$ is a Sobolev vector field with additional geometric structure, such as delta-monoticity or reduced quasiconformality. Specifically, through every non-critical point of $f$ there passes a unique integral curve.
We give sufficient conditions for a planar quasiregular mapping to be injective in terms of the range of the differential matrix.
We construct quasiconformal mappings in Euclidean spaces by integration of a discontinuous kernel against doubling measures with suitable decay. The differentials of mappings that arise in this way satisfy an isotropic form of the doubling condition. We prove that this isotropic doubling condition is satisfied by the distance functions of certain fractal sets. Finally, we construct an isotropic doubling measure that is not absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure.