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Peter Bella

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Bella.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2019

Local boundedness and Harnack inequality for solutions of linear non-uniformly elliptic equations

We study local regularity properties for solutions of linear, non-uniformly elliptic equations. Assuming certain integrability conditions on the coefficient field, we prove local boundedness and Harnack inequality. The assumed integrability assumptions are essentially sharp and improve upon classical results by Trudinger [ARMA 1971]. We then apply the deterministic regularity results to the corrector equation in stochastic homogenization and establish sublinearity of the corrector.

math.AP↗
arXiv2017

Effective Multipoles in Random media

In a homogeneous medium, the far-field generated by a localized source can be expanded in terms of multipoles; the coefficients are determined by the moments of the localized charge distribution. We show that this structure survives to some extent for a random medium in the sense of quantitative stochastic homogenization: In three space dimensions, the effective dipole and quadrupole - but not the octupole - can be inferred without knowing the realization of the random medium far away from the (overall neutral) source and the point of interest. Mathematically, this is achieved by using the two-scale expansion to higher order to construct isomorphisms between the hetero- and homogeneous versions of spaces of harmonic functions that grow at a certain rate, or decay at a certain rate away from the singularity (near the origin); these isomorphisms crucially respect the natural pairing between growing and decaying harmonic functions given by the second Green's formula. This not only yields effective multipoles (the quotient of the spaces of decaying functions) but also intrinsic moments (taken with respect to the elements of the spaces of growing functions). The construction of these rigid isomorphisms relies on a good (and dimension-dependent) control on the higher-order correctors and their flux potentials.

math.AP↗
arXiv2017

Wrinkling of a thin circular sheet bonded to a spherical substrate

We consider a disk-shaped thin elastic sheet bonded to a compliant sphere. (Our sheet can slip along the sphere; the bonding controls only its normal displacement.) If the bonding is stiff (but not too stiff), the geometry of the sphere makes the sheet wrinkle to avoid azimuthal compression. The total energy of this system is the elastic energy of the sheet plus a (Winkler-type) substrate energy. Treating the thickness of the sheet $h$ as a small parameter, we determine the leading-order behavior of the energy as $h$ tends to zero, and give (almost matching) upper and lower bounds for the next-order correction. Our analysis of the leading-order behavior determines the macroscopic deformation of the sheet; in particular it determines the extent of the wrinkled region, and predicts the (nontrivial) radial strain of the sheet. The leading-order behavior also provides insight about the length scale of the wrinkling, showing that it must be approximately independent of the distance $r$ from the center of the sheet (so that the number of wrinkles must increase with $r$). Our results on the next-order correction provide insight about how the wrinkling pattern should vary with $r$. Roughly speaking, they suggest that the length scale of wrinkling should {\it not} be exactly constant -- rather, it should vary a bit, so that the number of wrinkles at radius $r$ can be approximately piecewise constant in its dependence on $r$, taking values that are integer multiples of $h^{-α}$ with $α\approx 1/2$.

math.AP↗
arXiv2016

Stochastic homogenization of linear elliptic equations: Higher-order error estimates in weak norms via second-order correctors

We are concerned with the homogenization of second-order linear elliptic equations with random coefficient fields. For symmetric coefficient fields with only short-range correlations, quantified through a logarithmic Sobolev inequality for the ensemble, we prove that when measured in weak spatial norms, the solution to the homogenized equation provides a higher-order approximation of the solution to the equation with oscillating coefficients. In the case of nonsymmetric coefficient fields, we provide a higher-order approximation (in weak spatial norms) of the solution to the equation with oscillating coefficients in terms of solutions to constant-coefficient equations. In both settings, we also provide optimal error estimates for the two-scale expansion truncated at second order. Our results rely on novel estimates on the second-order homogenization corrector, which we establish via sensitivity estimates for the second-order corrector and a large-scale $L^p$ theory for elliptic equations with random coefficients. Our results also cover the case of elliptic systems.

math.AP↗
arXiv2016

A Liouville theorem for elliptic systems with degenerate ergodic coefficients

We study the behavior of second-order degenerate elliptic systems in divergence form with random coefficients which are stationary and ergodic. Assuming moment bounds like Chiarini and Deuschel [Arxiv preprint 1410.4483, 2014] on the coefficient field $a$ and its inverse, we prove an intrinsic large-scale $C^{1,α}$-regularity estimate for $a$-harmonic functions and obtain a first-order Liouville theorem for subquadratic $a$-harmonic functions.

math.AP↗
arXiv2015

Green's function for elliptic systems: moment bounds

We study estimates of the Green's function in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with $d \ge 2$, for the linear second order elliptic equation in divergence form with variable uniformly elliptic coefficients. In the case $d \ge 3$, we obtain estimates on the Green's function, its gradient, and the second mixed derivatives which scale optimally in space, in terms of the "minimal radius" $r_*$ introduced in [Gloria, Neukamm, and Otto: A regularity theory for random elliptic operators; ArXiv e-prints (2014)]. As an application, our result implies optimal stochastic Gaussian bounds in the realm of homogenization of equations with random coefficient fields with finite range of dependence. In two dimensions, where in general the Green's function does not exist, we construct its gradient and show the corresponding estimates on the gradient and mixed second derivatives. Since we do not use any scalar methods in the argument, the result holds in the case of uniformly elliptic systems as well.

math.AP↗
arXiv2015

A rigorous justification of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations with geometric effects

We derive the 1D isentropic Euler and Navier-Stokes equations describing the motion of a gas through a nozzle of variable cross section as the asymptotic limit of the 3D isentropic Navier-Stokes system in a cylinder, the diameter of which tends to zero. Our method is based on the relative energy inequality satisfied by any weak solution of the 3D Navier-Stokes system and a variant of Korn-Poincare's inequality on thin channels that may be of independent interest.

math.AP↗
arXiv2015

The coarsening of folds in hanging drapes

We consider the elastic energy of a hanging drape -- a thin elastic sheet, pulled down by the force of gravity, with fine-scale folding at the top that achieves approximately uniform confinement. This example of energy-driven pattern formation in a thin elastic sheet is of particular interest because the length scale of folding varies with height. We focus on how the minimum elastic energy depends on the physical parameters. As the sheet thickness vanishes, the limiting energy is due to the gravitational force and is relatively easy to understand. Our main accomplishment is to identify the "scaling law" of the correction due to positive thickness. We do this by (i) proving an upper bound, by considering the energies of several constructions and taking the best; (ii) proving an ansatz-free lower bound, which agrees with the upper bound up to a parameter-independent prefactor. The coarsening of folds in hanging drapes has also been considered in the recent physics literature, using a self-similar construction whose basic cell has been called a "wrinklon." Our results complement and extend that work, by showing that self-similar coarsening achieves the optimal scaling law in a certain parameter regime, and by showing that other constructions (involving lateral spreading of the sheet) do better in other regions of parameter space. Our analysis uses a geometrically linear Föppl-von Kármán model for the elastic energy, and is restricted to the case when Poisson's ratio is zero.

math.AP↗
arXiv2015

Quantitative stochastic homogenization: local control of homogenization error through corrector

This note addresses the homogenization error for linear elliptic equations in divergence-form with random stationary coefficients. The homogenization error is measured by comparing the quenched Green's function to the Green's function belonging to the homogenized coefficients, more precisely, by the (relative) spatial decay rate of the difference of their second mixed derivatives. The contribution of this note is purely deterministic: It uses the expanded notion of corrector, namely the couple of scalar and vector potentials $(ϕ,σ)$, and shows that the rate of sublinear growth of $(ϕ,σ)$ at the points of interest translates one-to-one into the decay rate.

math.AP↗
arXiv2014

Corrector estimates for elliptic systems with random periodic coefficients

We consider an elliptic system of equations on the torus $\left[ -\frac{L}{2}, \frac{L}{2} \right)^d$ with random coefficients $A$, that are assumed to be coercive and stationary. Using two different approaches we obtain moment bounds on the gradient of the corrector, independent of the domain size $L$. In the first approach we use Green function representation. For that we require $A$ to be locally Hölder continuous and distribution of $A$ to satisfy Logarithmic Sobolev inequality. The second method works for non-smooth (possibly discontinuous) coefficients, and it requires that statistics of $A$ satisfies Spectral Gap estimate.

math.AP↗
arXiv2014

Study of island formation in epitaxially strained films on unbounded domains

We consider a variational model for the formation of islands in heteroepitaxial growth on unbounded domains. We first derive the scaling regimes of the minimal energy in terms of the volume of the film and the amplitude of the crystallographic misfit. For small volumes, non-existence of minimizers is then proven. This corresponds to the experimentally observed wetting effect. On the other hand, we show the existence of minimizers for large volumes. We finally study the asymptotic behavior of the optimal shapes.

math.AP↗
arXiv2014

Transition between planar and wrinkled regions in uniaxially stretched thin elastic film

We study the transition from flat to wrinkled region in uniaxially stretched thin elastic film. We set up a model variational problem, and study energy of its ground state. Using known scaling bounds for the minimal energy, the minimal energy can be written as a minimum of the underlying (convex) relaxed problem plus a term, which grows linearly in the thickness of the film. We show that in the limit of vanishing thickness the prefactor in the scaling law for the original problem can be obtained by minimization of simpler scalar constrained variational problems.

math.AP↗
arXiv2014

Robustness of strong solutions to the compressible Navier-Stokes system

We consider the Navier-Stokes system describing the time evolution of a compressible barotropic fluid confined to a bounded spatial domain in the 3-D physical space, supplemented with the Navier's slip boundary conditions. It is shown that the class of global in time strong solutions is robust with respect to small perturbations of the initial data. Explicit qualitative estimates are given also in terms of the shape of the underlying physical domain, with applications to problems posed on thin cylinders.

math.AP↗
arXiv2013

Nucleation barriers at corners for cubic-to-tetragonal phase transformation

We are interested in the energetic cost of a martensitic inclusion of volume $V$ in austenite for the cubic-to-tetragonal phase transformation. In contrast with the work of [Knüpfer, Kohn, Otto: Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 66 (2013), no. 6, 867--904], we consider domain with a corner and obtain a better scaling law for the minimal energy ($E_{min} \sim \min(V^{2/3},V^{7/9})$). Our predictions are in a good agreement with physical experiments where nucleation of martensite is usually observed near the corners of the specimen.

math.AP↗
arXiv2012

Wrinkles as a relaxation of compressive stresses in an annular thin film

It is well known that an elastic sheet loaded in tension will wrinkle and that the length scale of the wrinkles tends to zero with vanishing thickness of the sheet [Cerda and Mahadevan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 074302 (2003)]. We give the first mathematically rigorous analysis of such a problem. Since our methods require an explicit understanding of the underlying (convex) relaxed problem, we focus on the wrinkling of an annular sheet loaded in the radial direction [Davidovitch et al., PNAS 108 (2011), no. 45]. Our main achievement is identification of the scaling law of the minimum energy as the thickness of the sheet tends to zero. This requires proving an upper bound and a lower bound that scale the same way. We prove both bounds first in a simplified Kirchhoff-Love setting and then in the nonlinear three-dimensional setting. To obtain the optimal upper bound, we need to adjust a naive construction (one family of wrinkles superimposed on a planar deformation) by introducing a cascade of wrinkles. The lower bound is more subtle, since it must be ansatz-free.

math-ph↗