arXiv subjects

M. Holst

Publications and source records attributed to M. Holst.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

A Note on Optimal Tokamak Control for Fusion Power Simulation

The Tokamak device is the most promising candidate for producing sustainable electric power by nuclear fusion. It is a torus-shaped device that confines plasma by a strong magnetic field. The development, design and control of the design has been an important area of research, and a significant target is to effectively confine the extremely hot plasma inside its hollow torus-shaped body without touching its boundary for a prolonged period of time. In an attempt to control a Tokamak device, this paper investigates an optimal control problem for an incompressible, viscous, electrically conducting MHD fluid confined in a closed toroidal region in the presence of an applied current. The objective functional for the optimal control problem are subject to set of constraint equations, Navier-Stokes and Maxwell equations. We target the transient control of guiding the plasma to a desired flow at a particular short time instant, where it is expected that the flow had been designed offline to be the desired one from the point of view of steady state operation.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2021

Multiplication in Sobolev Spaces, Revisited

In this article, we re-examine some of the classical pointwise multiplication theorems in Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces, in part motivated by a simple counter-example that illustrates how certain multiplication theorems fail in Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces when a bounded domain is replaced by Rn. We identify the source of the failure, and examine why the same failure is not encountered in Bessel potential spaces. To analyze the situation, we begin with a survey of the classical multiplication results stated and proved in the 1977 article of Zolesio, and carefully distinguish between the case of spaces defined on the all of Rn and spaces defined on a bounded domain (with e.g. a Lipschitz boundary). However, the survey we give has a few new wrinkles; the proofs we include are based almost exclusively on interpolation theory rather than Littlewood-Paley theory and Besov spaces, and some of the results we give and their proofs, including the results for negative exponents, do not appear in the literature in this form. We also include a particularly important variation of one of the multiplication theorems that is relevant to the study of nonlinear PDE systems arising in general relativity and other areas. The conditions for multiplication to be continuous in the case of Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces are somewhat subtle and intertwined, and as a result, the multiplication theorems of Zolesio in 1977 have been cited (more than once) in the standard literature in slightly more generality than what is actually proved by Zolesio, and in cases that allow for the construction of counter-examples such as the one included here.

math.AP↗

arXiv2020

Local sensitivity analysis of the `Membrane shape equation' derived from the Helfrich energy

The Helfrich energy is commonly used to model the elastic bending energy of lipid bilayers in membrane mechanics. The governing differential equations for certain geometric characteristics of the shape of the membrane can be obtained by applying variational methods (minimization principles) to the Helfrich energy functional and are well-studied in the axisymmetric framework. However, the Helfrich energy functional and the resulting differential equations involve a number of parameters, and there is little explanation of the choice of parameters in the literature, particularly with respect to the choice of the "spontaneous curvature" term that appears in the functional. In this paper, we present a careful analytical and numerical study of certain aspects of parametric sensitivity of Helfrich's Using simulations of specific model systems, we demonstrate the application of our scheme to the formation of spherical buds and pearled shapes in membrane vesicles.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Stability Analysis of a Bulk-Surface Reaction Model for Membrane-Protein Clustering

Protein aggregation on the plasma membrane (PM) is of critical importance to many cellular processes such as cell adhesion, endocytosis, fibrillar conformation, and vesicle transport. Lateral diffusion of protein aggregates or clusters on the surface of the PM plays an important role in governing their heterogeneous surface distribution. However, the stability behavior of the surface distribution of protein aggregates remains poorly understood. Therefore, understanding the spatial patterns that can emerge on the PM solely through protein-protein interaction, lateral diffusion, and feedback is an important step towards a complete description of the mechanisms behind protein clustering on the cell surface. In this work, we investigate the pattern formation of a reaction-diffusion model that describes the dynamics of a system of ligand-receptor complexes. The purely diffusive ligand in the cytosol can bind receptors in the PM, and the resultant ligand-receptor complexes not only diffuse laterally but can also form clusters resulting in different oligomers. Finally, the largest oligomers recruit ligands from the cytosol in a positive feedback. From a methodological viewpoint, we provide theoretical estimates for diffusion-driven instabilities of the protein aggregates based on the Turing mechanism. Our main result is a threshold phenomenon, in which a sufficiently high recruitment of ligands promotes the input of new monomeric components and consequently drives the formation of a single-patch spatially heterogeneous steady-state.

q-bio.SC↗

arXiv2018

Geometric Transformation of Finite Element Methods: Theory and Applications

We present a new technique to apply finite element methods to partial differential equations over curved domains. A change of variables along a coordinate transformation satisfying only low regularity assumptions can translate a Poisson problem over a curved physical domain to a Poisson problem over a polyhedral parametric domain. This greatly simplifies both the geometric setting and the practical implementation, at the cost of having globally rough non-trivial coefficients and data in the parametric Poisson problem. Our main result is that a recently developed broken Bramble-Hilbert lemma is key in harnessing regularity in the physical problem to prove higher-order finite element convergence rates for the parametric problem. Numerical experiments are given which confirm the predictions of our theory.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

The Implementation of the Colored Abstract Simplicial Complex and its Application to Mesh Generation

We introduce CASC: a new, modern, and header-only C++ library which provides a data structure to represent arbitrary dimension abstract simplicial complexes (ASC) with user-defined classes stored directly on the simplices at each dimension. This is accomplished by using the latest C++ language features including variadic template parameters introduced in C++11 and automatic function return type deduction from C++14. Effectively CASC decouples the representation of the topology from the interactions of user data. We present the innovations and design principles of the data structure and related algorithms. This includes a metadata aware decimation algorithm which is general for collapsing simplices of any dimension. We also present an example application of this library to represent an orientable surface mesh.

cs.MS↗

arXiv2018

Sobolev-Slobodeckij Spaces on Compact Manifolds, Revisited

In this article we present a coherent rigorous overview of the main properties of Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces of sections of vector bundles on compact manifolds; results of this type are scattered through the literature and can be difficult to find. A special emphasis has been put on spaces with noninteger smoothness order, and a special attention has been paid to the peculiar fact that for a general nonsmooth domain U in Rn, 0<t<1, and 1<p<oo, it is not necessarily true that W(1,p)(U) is continuously embedded in W(t,p)(U). This has dire consequences in the multiplication properties of Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces and subsequently in the study of Sobolev spaces on manifolds. To the authors' knowledge, some of the proofs, especially those that are pertinent to the properties of Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces of sections of general vector bundles, cannot be found in the literature in the generality appearing here.

math.AP↗

arXiv2018

Some Remarks on the Space of Locally Sobolev-Slobodeckij Functions

The study of certain differential operators between Sobolev spaces of sections of vector bundles on compact manifolds equipped with rough metric is closely related to the study of locally Sobolev functions on domains in the Euclidean space. In this paper we present a coherent rigorous study of some of the properties of locally Sobolev-Slobodeckij functions that are especially useful in the study of differential operators between sections of vector bundles on compact manifolds with rough metric. Results of this type in published literature generally can be found only for integer order Sobolev spaces W(m,p) or Bessel potential spaces Hs. Here we have presented the relevant results and their detailed proofs for Sobolev-Slobodeckij spaces W(s,p) where s does not need to be an integer. We also develop a number of results needed in the study of differential operators on manifolds that do not appear to be in the literature.

math.AP↗

arXiv2017

Reliability Assessment for Large-Scale Molecular Dynamics Approximations

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used in biochemistry, physics, and other fields to study the motions, thermodynamic properties, and the interactions between molecules. Computational limitations and the complexity of these problems, however, create the need for approximations to the standard MD methods and for uncertainty quantification and reliability assessment of those approximations. In this paper, we exploit the intrinsic two-scale nature of MD to construct a class of large-scale dynamics approximations. The reliability of these methods are evaluated here by measuring the differences between full, classical MD simulations and those based on these large-scale approximations. Molecular dynamics evolutions are non-linear and chaotic, so the complete details of molecular evolutions cannot be accurately predicted even using full, classical MD simulations. This paper provides numerical results that demonstrate the existence of computationally efficient large-scale MD approximations which accurately model certain large-scale properties of the molecules: the energy, the linear and angular momenta, and other macroscopic features of molecular motions.

math.NA↗

arXiv2017

Rough solutions of the Einstein Constraint Equations on Asymptotically Flat Manifolds without Near-CMC Conditions

In this article we consider the conformal decomposition of the Einstein constraint equations introduced by Lichnerowicz, Choquet-Bruhat, and York, on asymptotically flat (AF) manifolds. Using the non-CMC fixed-point framework developed in 2009 by Holst, Nagy, and Tsogtgerel and by Maxwell, we establish existence of coupled non-CMC weak solutions for AF manifolds. As is the case for the analogous existence results for non-CMC solutions on closed manifolds and compact manifolds with boundary, our results here avoid the near-CMC assumption by assuming that the freely specifiable part of the data given by the traceless-transverse part of the rescaled extrinsic curvature and the matter fields are sufficiently small. The non-CMC rough solutions results here for AF manifolds may be viewed as extending to AF manifolds the 2009 and 2014 results on rough far-from-CMC positive Yamabe solutions for closed and compact manifolds with boundary. Similarly, our results may be viewed as extending the recent 2014 results for AF manifolds of Dilts, Isenberg, Mazzeo and Meier, and of Holst and Meier; while their results are restricted to smoother background metrics and data, the results here allow the regularity to be extended down to the minimum regularity allowed by the background metric and the matter, further completing the rough solution program initiated by Maxwell and Choquet-Bruhat in 2004.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Non-CMC Solutions of the Einstein Constraint Equations on Compact Manifolds with Apparent Horizon Boundaries

In this article we continue our effort to do a systematic development of the solution theory for conformal formulations of the Einstein constraint equations on compact manifolds with boundary. By building in a natural way on our recent work in Holst and Tsogtgerel (2013), and Holst, Nagy, and Tsogtgerel (2008, 2009), and also on the work of Maxwell (2004, 2005, 2009) and Dain (2004), under reasonable assumptions on the data we prove existence of both near- and far-from-constant mean curvature solutions for a class of Robin boundary conditions commonly used in the literature for modeling black holes, with a third existence result for constant mean curvature (CMC) appearing as a special case. Dain and Maxwell addressed initial data engineering for space-times that evolve to contain black holes, determining solutions to the conformal formulation on an asymptotically Euclidean manifold in the CMC setting, with interior boundary conditions representing excised interior black hole regions. Holst and Tsogtgerel compiled the interior boundary results covered by Dain and Maxwell, and then developed general interior conditions to model the apparent horizon boundary conditions of Dain and Maxwell for compact manifolds with boundary, and subsequently proved existence of solutions to the Lichnerowicz equation on compact manifolds with such boundary conditions. This paper picks up where Holst and Tsogtgerel left off, addressing the general non-CMC case for compact manifolds with boundary. As in our previous articles, our focus here is again on low regularity data and on the interaction between different types of boundary conditions. While our work here serves primarily to extend the solution theory for the compact with boundary case, we also develop several technical tools that have potential for use with the asymptotically Euclidean case.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2011

Numerical Bifurcation Analysis of Conformal Formulations of the Einstein Constraints

The Einstein constraint equations have been the subject of study for more than fifty years. The introduction of the conformal method in the 1970's as a parameterization of initial data for the Einstein equations led to increased interest in the development of a complete solution theory for the constraints, with the theory for constant mean curvature (CMC) spatial slices and closed manifolds completely developed by 1995. The first general non-CMC existence result was establish by Holst et al. in 2008, with extensions to rough data by Holst et al. in 2009, and to vacuum spacetimes by Maxwell in 2009. The non-CMC theory remains mostly open; moreover, recent work of Maxwell on specific symmetry models sheds light on fundamental non-uniqueness problems with the conformal method as a parameterization in non-CMC settings. In parallel with these mathematical developments, computational physicists have uncovered surprising behavior in numerical solutions to the extended conformal thin sandwich formulation of the Einstein constraints. In particular, numerical evidence suggests the existence of multiple solutions with a quadratic fold, and a recent analysis of a simplified model supports this conclusion. In this article, we examine this apparent bifurcation phenomena in a methodical way, using modern techniques in bifurcation theory and in numerical homotopy methods. We first review the evidence for the presence of bifurcation in the Hamiltonian constraint in the time-symmetric case. We give a brief introduction to the mathematical framework for analyzing bifurcation phenomena, and then develop the main ideas behind the construction of numerical homotopy, or path-following, methods in the analysis of bifurcation phenomena. We then apply the continuation software package AUTO to this problem, and verify the presence of the fold with homotopy-based numerical methods.

math.NA↗

arXiv2008

Far-from-constant mean curvature solutions of Einstein's constraint equations with positive Yamabe metrics

In this article we develop some new existence results for the Einstein constraint equations using the Lichnerowicz-York conformal rescaling method. The mean extrinsic curvature is taken to be an arbitrary smooth function without restrictions on the size of its spatial derivatives, so that it can be arbitrarily far from constant. The rescaled background metric belongs to the positive Yamabe class, and the freely specifiable part of the data given by the traceless-transverse part of the rescaled extrinsic curvature and the matter fields are taken to be sufficiently small, with the matter energy density not identically zero. Using topological fixed-point arguments and global barrier constructions, we then establish existence of solutions to the constraints. Two recent advances in the analysis of the Einstein constraint equations make this result possible: A new type of topological fixed-point argument without smallness conditions on spatial derivatives of the mean extrinsic curvature, and a new construction of global super-solutions for the Hamiltonian constraint that is similarly free of such conditions on the mean extrinsic curvature. For clarity, we present our results only for strong solutions on closed manifolds. However, our results also hold for weak solutions and for other cases such as compact manifolds with boundary; these generalizations will appear elsewhere. The existence results presented here for the Einstein constraints are apparently the first such results that do not require smallness conditions on spatial derivatives of the mean extrinsic curvature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2007

Rough solutions of the Einstein constraint equations with nonconstant mean curvature

We consider the conformal decomposition of Einstein's constraint equations introduced by Lichnerowicz and York, on a compact manifold with boundary. We use order relations on appropriate Banach spaces to derive weak solution generalizations of known sub- and super-solutions (barriers) for the Hamiltonian constraint. The barriers are combined with variational methods to establish existence of solutions to the Hamiltonian constraint in the intersection of the space of essentially bounded functions and the Sobolev space H1. The result is established for scalar curvature R of the background metric having any sign; non-negative R requires additional positivity assumptions either on the matter energy density or on the trace-free divergence-free part of the extrinsic curvature. Although the formulation is different, the result can be viewed as lowering the regularity of the recent result of Maxwell on rough CMC solutions. We also establish existence of non-CMC solutions of the Hamiltonian and momentum constraint equations. The result is obtained using fixed-point iteration and compactness arguments directly, rather than by building a contraction map. The non-CMC result can be viewed as a type of extension of the regularity of the 1996 non-CMC result of Isenberg and Moncrief to lower regularity and to scalar curvature R having any sign.

gr-qc↗