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Max Engelstein

Publications and source records attributed to Max Engelstein.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Recovering Sharp Conductivity Features in the Finite-Data Calder\'on Problem with Physics-Informed Neural Networks

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) have recently emerged as a promising framework for addressing the Calder\'on inverse problem from limited boundary data. In this work, we revisit neural Calder\'on inversion by introducing multiscale boundary excitations based on randomized wavelet functions and investigating the role of Fourier-feature encoding (FFE) for representing sharp conductivity variations. We propose a physics-informed reconstruction framework that represents the unknown conductivity and the associated family of electric potentials with separate neural networks conditioned on the applied boundary excitations. The governing elliptic PDE is enforced through physics-informed residuals, while finite Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) data are incorporated through boundary losses. Using synthetic data from a finite-difference forward solver, we evaluate the method on conductivity fields with inclusions, sharp interfaces, smooth profiles, and heterogeneous media. Results show that the framework recovers dominant conductivity structures from finite boundary measurements with relative errors between $3\%-12\%$ approximately. We show that FFE improves the reconstruction of localized sharp features, particularly for inclusions and interfaces, but are not universally optimal, with raw-coordinate networks performing competitively for smoother fields. These results highlight coordinate representations and boundary excitation design as key factors in neural Calder\'on inversion.

cs.LG

Regularity of the free boundary for the supercooled Stefan problem in arbitrary dimensions

We study the free boundary in the supercooled Stefan problem, a classical model for the solidification of water below its freezing temperature. In contrast with the melting problem, physical experiments and heuristics indicate that the water--ice interface in the supercooled problem may exhibit fractal freezing sets, infinite-speed propagation of the frozen front, and nucleation (the spontaneous appearance of ice). Despite this, we show that the free boundary has a robust structure. We decompose the free boundary into three parts: (1) a regular part that advances with finite speed in time; (2) a singular part consisting of points where the front attains infinite speed or nucleates, but with controlled space-time (i.e., $\leq d-1$ parabolic) dimension; and (3) a jump component, which can have large dimension in a time slice, but which is contained in a space-time smooth graph and occurs only at a zero-dimensional set of times. Examples show that each of these parts can be nonempty. Furthermore, we prove that the free boundary is the graph $t=s(x)$ of a continuously differentiable freezing time $s$, and the singular set coincides with the critical set of $s$, proving that singularities in supercooled freezing always occur with infinite speed. These results provide the first free boundary regularity theory for the supercooled Stefan problem in arbitrary dimensions.

math.AP

On the asymptotic properties of solutions to one-phase free boundary problems

In this article we study the structure of solutions to the one-phase Bernoulli problem that are modeled either infinitesimally or at infinity by one-homogeneous solutions with an isolated singularity. In particular, we prove a uniqueness of blowups result under a natural symmetry condition on the one-homogeneous solution (\`a la Allard--Almgren) and we prove a rigidity result at infinity (\`a la Simon--Solomon) under additional constraints on the linearized operator around the one-homogeneous solution (which are satisfied by the only known examples of minimizing one-homogeneous solutions). We believe these are the first uniqueness of blow-up/blow-down results at singular points for non-minimizing solutions to the one-phase problem.

math.AP

Robin Green Function Estimates and a Model of Mammalian Lungs

The present paper establishes delicate properties of the Green function with Robin boundary conditions, in particular, elucidating the nature of the passage between the Dirichlet-like and Neumann-like behavior. This yields sharp quantifiable bounds on the corresponding harmonic measure and proves the phase transition in the behavior of the total flow earlier conjectured in physics literature in concert with the efficacy of mammalian lungs.

math.AP

Singular set estimates for solutions to elliptic equations in higher co-dimension

Recent advances in quantitative unique continuation properties for solutions to uniformly elliptic, divergence form equations (with Lipschitz coefficients) has led to a good understanding of the vanishing order and size of singular and zero set of solutions. Such estimates also hold at the boundary, provided that the domain is sufficiently regular. In this work, we investigate the boundary behavior of solutions to a class of elliptic equations in the higher co-dimension setting, whose coefficients are neither uniformly elliptic, nor uniformly Lipschitz. Despite these challenges, we are still able to show analogous estimates on the singular set of such solutions near the boundary. Our main technical advance is a variant of the Cheeger-Naber-Valtorta quantitative stratification scheme using cones instead of planes.

math.AP

Unique continuation for locally uniformly distributed measures

In this note we show that the support of a locally $k$-uniform measure in $\mathbb R^{n+1}$ satisfies a kind of unique continuation property. As a consequence, we show that locally uniformly distributed measures satisfy a weaker unique continuation property. This continues work of Kirchheim and Preiss (Math. Scand. 2002) and David, Kenig and Toro (Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 2001) and lends additional evidence to the conjecture proposed by Kowalski and Preiss (J. Reine Angew. Math. 1987) that each connected component of the support of a locally $n$-uniform measure in $\mathbb R^{n+1}$ is contained in the zero set of a quadratic polynomial.

math.CA

Dimension and structure of the Robin Harmonic Measure on Rough Domains

The present paper establishes that the Robin harmonic measure is quantitatively mutually absolutely continuous with respect to the surface measure on any Ahlfors regular set in any (quantifiably) connected domain for any elliptic operator. This stands in contrast with analogous results for the Dirichlet boundary value problem and also contradicts the expectation, supported by simulations in the physics literature, that the dimension of the Robin harmonic measure in rough domains exhibits a phase transition as the boundary condition interpolates between completely reflecting and completely absorbing. In the adopted traditional language, the corresponding harmonic measure exhibits no dimension drop, and the absolute continuity necessitates neither rectifiability of the boundary nor control of the oscillations of the coefficients of the equation. The expected phase transition is rather exhibited through the detailed non-scale-invariant weight estimates.

math.AP

Graphical solutions to one-phase free boundary problems

We study viscosity solutions to the classical one-phase problem and its thin counterpart. In low dimensions, we show that when the free boundary is the graph of a continuous function, the solution is the half-plane solution. This answers, in the salient dimensions, a one-phase free boundary analogue of Bernstein's problem for minimal surfaces. As an application, we also classify monotone solutions of semilinear equations with a bump-type nonlinearity.

math.AP

Slowly vanishing mean oscillations: non-uniqueness of blow-ups in a two-phase free boundary problem

In Kenig and Toro's two-phase free boundary problem, one studies how the regularity of the Radon-Nikodym derivative $h= d\omega^-/d\omega^+$ of harmonic measures on complementary NTA domains controls the geometry of their common boundary. It is now known that $\log h \in C^{0,\alpha}(\partial \Omega)$ implies that pointwise the boundary has a unique blow-up, which is the zero set of a homogeneous harmonic polynomial. In this note, we give examples of domains with $\log h \in C(\partial \Omega)$ whose boundaries have points with non-unique blow-ups. Philosophically the examples arise from oscillating or rotating a blow-up limit by an infinite amount, but very slowly.

math.AP

Non-local distance functions and geometric regularity

We establish the equivalence between the regularity (rectifiability) of sets and suitable estimates on the oscillation of the gradient for smooth non-local distance functions. A prototypical example of such a distance was introduced, as part of a larger PDE theory, by Guy David, Joseph Feneuil, and the third author. The results apply to all dimensions and co-dimensions, require no underlying topological assumptions, and provide a surprisingly rich class of analytic characterizations of rectifiability.

math.CA

Branch Points for (Almost-)Minimizers of Two-Phase Free Boundary Problems

We study the existence and structure of branch points in two-phase free boundary problems. More precisely, we construct a family of minimizers to an Alt- Caffarelli-Friedman type functional whose free boundaries contain branch points in the strict interior of the domain. We also give an example showing that branch points in the free boundary of almost-minimizers of the same functional can have very little structure. This last example stands in contrast with recent results of De Philippis- Spolaor-Velichkov on the structure of branch points in the free boundary of stationary solutions.

math.AP

\L ojasiewicz Inequalities and Generic Smoothness of Nodal Sets of Solutions to Elliptic PDE

In this article, we prove that for a broad class of second order elliptic PDEs, including the Laplacian, the zero sets of solutions to the Dirichlet problem are smooth for "generic" $L^2$ data. When the zero set of a solution (e.g. a harmonic function) contains a singularity, this means that we can find an arbitrarily small perturbation of the boundary data so that the zero set of the perturbed solution is smooth throughout a prescribed neighborhood of the former singularity. Furthermore, we can take the perturbation to be "mean zero" for which there are additional technical difficulties to ensure that we do not introduce new singularities in the process of eliminating the original ones. Of independent interest, in order to prove the main theorem, we establish an effective version of the \L ojasiewicz gradient inequality with uniform constants in the class of solutions with bounded frequency.

math.AP

Rectifiability and almost everywhere uniqueness of the blow-up for the vectorial Bernoulli free boundaries

We prove that for minimizers of the vectorial Alt-Caffarelli functional the two-phase singular set of the free boundary is rectifiable and the blow-up is unique almost everywhere on it. While the first conclusion is an application of the recent techniques developed by Naber and Valtorta, the uniqueness part follows from the rectifiability and a new application of the Alt-Caffarelli-Friedman monotonicity formula.

math.AP

Quantitative Stability for Minimizing Yamabe Metrics

On any closed Riemannian manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$, we prove that if a function nearly minimizes the Yamabe energy, then the corresponding conformal metric is close, in a quantitative sense, to a minimizing Yamabe metric in the conformal class. Generically, this distance is controlled quadratically by the Yamabe energy deficit. Finally, we produce an example for which this quadratic estimate is false.

math.AP

Non-Uniqueness of Bubbling for Wave Maps

We consider wave maps from $\mathbb R^{2+1}$ to a $C^\infty$-smooth Riemannian manifold, $\mathcal N$. Such maps can exhibit energy concentration, and at points of concentration, it is known that the map (suitably rescaled and translated) converges weakly to a harmonic map, known as a bubble. We give an example of a wave map which exhibits a type of non-uniqueness of bubbling. In particular, we exhibit a continuum of different bubbles at the origin, each of which arise as the weak limit along a different sequence of times approaching the blow-up time. This is the first known example of non-uniqueness of bubbling for dispersive equations. Our construction is inspired by the work of Peter Topping [Topping 2004], who demonstrated a similar phenomena can occur in the setting of harmonic map heat flow, and our mechanism of non-uniqueness is the same 'winding' behavior exhibited in that work.

math.AP

Regularity for almost-minimizers of variable coefficient Bernoulli-type functionals

In [David-Toro 15] and [David-Engelstein-Toro 19], (some of) the authors studied almost minimizers for functionals of the type first studied by Alt and Caffarelli in [Alt-Caffarelli 81] and Alt, Caffarelli and Friedman in [Alt-Caffarelli-Friedman 84]. In this paper we study the regularity of almost minimizers to energy functionals with variable coefficients (as opposed to [DT15, DET19. AC 81] and [ACF84] which deal only with the "Laplacian" setting). We prove Lipschitz regularity up to, and across, the free boundary, generalizing the results of [David-Toro 15] to the variable coefficient setting.

math.AP

Two Phase Free Boundary Problem for Poisson Kernels

We provide a potential theoretic characterization of vanishing chord-arc domains under minimal assumptions. In particular we show that, if a domain has Ahlfors regular boundary, the oscillation of the logarithm of the interior and exterior Poisson kernels yields a great deal of geometric information about the domain. We use techniques from the classical calculus of variations, potential theory, quantitative geometric measure theory to accomplish this. One feature of this work, compared to Bortz-Hofmann PAMS 16 and Kenig-Toro Crelle 06, is that a priori we only require that the domains in question are connected.

math.CA