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We investigate the behavior of minimizers of perturbed Dirichlet energies supported on a wire generated by a regular simple curve $\gamma$ and defined in the space of $\mathbb{S}^2$-valued functions. The perturbation $K$ is represented by a matrix-valued function defined on $\mathbb{S}^2$ with values in $\mathbb{R}^{3 \times 3}$. Under natural regularity conditions on $K$, we show that the family of perturbed Dirichlet energies converges, in the sense of $\Gamma$-convergence, to a simplified energy functional on $\gamma$. The reduced energy unveils how part of the antisymmetric exchange interactions contribute to an anisotropic term whose specific shape depends on the curvature of $\gamma$. We also discuss the significant implications of our results for studies of ferromagnetic nanowires when Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is present.

We present a concise point of view on the first and the second Korn's inequality for general exponent $p$ and for a class of domains that includes Lipschitz domains. Our argument is conceptually very simple and, for $p = 2$, uses only the classical Riesz representation theorem in Hilbert spaces. Moreover, the argument for the general exponent $1

The paper concerns the analysis of global minimizers of a Dirichlet-type energy functional defined on the space of vector fields $H^1(S,T)$, where $S$ and $T$ are surfaces of revolution. The energy functional we consider is closely related to a reduced model in the variational theory of micromagnetism for the analysis of observable magnetization states in curved thin films. We show that axially symmetric minimizers always exist, and if the target surface $T$ is never flat, then any coexisting minimizer must have line symmetry. Thus, the minimization problem reduces to the computation of an optimal one-dimensional profile. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for energy minimizers to be axially symmetric.

In the context of Sobolev spaces with variable exponents, Poincar\'e--Wirtinger inequalities are possible as soon as Luxemburg norms are considered. On the other hand, modular versions of the inequalities in the expected form \begin{equation*} \int_\Omega \left|f(x)-\langle f\rangle_{\Omega}\right|^{p(x)} \ {\mathrm{d} x} \leqslant C \int_\Omega|\nabla f(x)|^{p(x)}{\mathrm{d} x}, \end{equation*} are known to be \emph{false}. As a result, all available modular versions of the Poincar\'e- Wirtinger inequality in the variable-exponent setting always contain extra terms that do not disappear in the constant exponent case, preventing such inequalities from reducing to the classical ones in the constant exponent setting. Our contribution is threefold. First, we establish that a modular Poincar\'e--Wirtinger inequality particularizing to the classical one in the constant exponent case is indeed conceivable. We show that if $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ is a bounded Lipschitz domain, and if $p\in L^\infty(\Omega)$, $p \geq 1$, then for every $f\in C^\infty(\bar\Omega)$ the following generalized Poincar\'e--Wirtinger inequality holds \begin{equation*} \int_\Omega \left|f(x)-\langle f\rangle_{\Omega}\right|^{p(x)} \ {\mathrm{d} x} \leq C \int_\Omega\int_\Omega \frac{|\nabla f(z)|^{p(x)}}{|z-x|^{n-1}}\ {\mathrm{d} z}{\mathrm{d} x}, \end{equation*} where $\langle f\rangle_{\Omega}$ denotes the mean of $f$ over $\Omega$, and $C>0$ is a positive constant depending only on $\Omega$ and $\|p\|_{L^\infty(\Omega)}$. Second, our argument is concise and constructive and does not rely on compactness results. Third, we additionally provide geometric information on the best Poincar\'e--Wirtinger constant on Lipschitz domains.

Following the seminal paper by Bourgain, Brezis and Mironescu, we focus on the asymptotic behavior of some nonlocal functionals that, for each $u\in L^2(\mathbb{R}^N)$, are defined as the double integrals of weighted, squared difference quotients of $u$. Given a family of weights $\{\rho_\epsilon\}$, $\epsilon\in (0,1)$, we devise sufficient and necessary conditions on $\{\rho_\epsilon\}$ for the associated nonlocal functionals to converge as $\epsilon\to 0$ to a variant of the Dirichlet integral. Finally, some comparison between our result and the existing literature is provided.

We investigate the curved thin-film limit of a family of perturbed Dirichlet energies in the space of $H^1$ Sobolev maps defined in a tubular neighborhood of an $(n - 1)$-dimensional submanifold $N$ of $\mathbb{R}^n$ and with values in an $(m - 1)$-dimensional submanifold $M$ of $\mathbb{R}^m$. The perturbation $\mathsf{K}$ that we consider is represented by a matrix-valued function defined on $M$ and with values in $\mathbb{R}^{m \times n}$. Under natural regularity hypotheses on $N$, $M$, and $\mathsf{K}$, we show that the family of these energies converges, in the sense of $\Gamma$-convergence, to an energy functional on $N$ of an unexpected form, which is of particular interest in the theory of magnetic skyrmions. As a byproduct of our results, we get that in the curved thin-film limit, antisymmetric exchange interactions also manifest under an anisotropic term whose specific shape depends both on the curvature of the thin film and the curvature of the target manifold. Various types of antisymmetric exchange interactions in the variational theory of micromagnetism are a source of inspiration and motivation for our work.

We discuss a mass-lumped midpoint scheme for the numerical approximation of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, which models the dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnetic materials. In addition to the classical micromagnetic field contributions, our setting covers the non-standard Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which is the essential ingredient for the enucleation and stabilization of magnetic skyrmions. Our analysis also includes the inexact solution of the arising nonlinear systems, for which we discuss both a constraint preserving fixed-point solver from the literature and a novel approach based on the Newton method. We numerically compare the two linearization techniques and show that the Newton solver leads to a considerably lower number of nonlinear iterations. Moreover, in a numerical study on magnetic skyrmions, we demonstrate that, for magnetization dynamics that are very sensitive to energy perturbations, the midpoint scheme, due to its conservation properties, is superior to the dissipative tangent plane schemes from the literature., Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

The paper concerns the analysis of global minimizers of a Dirichlet-type energy functional in the class of $\mathbb{S}^2$-valued maps defined in cylindrical surfaces. The model naturally arises as a curved thin-film limit in the theories of nematic liquid crystals and micromagnetics. We show that minimal configurations are $z$-invariant and that energy minimizers in the class of weakly axially symmetric competitors are, in fact, axially symmetric. Our main result is a family of sharp Poincar\'e-type inequality on the circular cylinder, which allows establishing a nearly complete picture of the energy landscape. The presence of symmetry-breaking phenomena is highlighted and discussed. Finally, we provide a complete characterization of in-plane minimizers, which typically appear in numerical simulations for reasons we explain.

We consider $\mathbb{S}^2$-valued maps on a domain $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N$ minimizing a perturbation of the Dirichlet energy with vertical penalization in $\Omega$ and horizontal penalization on $\partial\Omega$. We first show the global minimality of universal constant configurations in a specific range of the physical parameters using a Poincar\'e-type inequality. Then, we prove that any energy minimizer takes its values into a fixed meridian of the sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$, and deduce uniqueness of minimizers up to the action of the appropriate symmetry group. We also prove a comparison principle for minimizers with different penalizations. Finally, we apply these results to a problem on a ball and show radial symmetry and monotonicity of minimizers. In dimension $N=2$ our results can be applied to the Oseen--Frank energy for nematic liquid crystals and micromagnetic energy in a thin-film regime.

We present a unified strategy to derive Hardy-Poincar\'e inequalities on bounded and unbounded domains. The approach allows proving a general Hardy-Poincar\'e inequality from which the classical Poincar\'e and Hardy inequalities immediately follow. The idea also applies to the more general context of variable exponent Sobolev spaces. The argument, concise and constructive, does not require a priori knowledge of compactness results and retrieves geometric information on the best constants., Comment: 14 pages, 1 Figure

In this paper, we study the thin-film limit of the micromagnetic energy functional in the presence of bulk Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). Our analysis includes both a stationary $\Gamma$-convergence result for the micromagnetic energy, as well as the identification of the asymptotic behavior of the associated Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. In particular, we prove that, in the limiting model, part of the DMI term behaves like the projection of the magnetic moment onto the normal to the film, contributing this way to an increase in the shape anisotropy arising from the magnetostatic self-energy. Finally, we discuss a convergent finite element approach for the approximation of the time-dependent case and use it to numerically compare the original three-dimensional model with the two-dimensional thin-film limit.

In this paper, we consider spin-diffusion Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equations (SDLLG), which consist of the time-dependent Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation coupled with a time-dependent diffusion equation for the electron spin accumulation. The model takes into account the diffusion process of the spin accumulation in the magnetization dynamics of ferromagnetic multilayers. We prove that in the limit of long times, the system reduces to simpler equations in which the LLG equation is coupled to a nonlinear and nonlocal steady-state equation, referred to as SLLG. As a by-product, the existence of global weak solutions to the SLLG equation is obtained. Moreover, we prove weak-strong uniqueness of solutions of SLLG, i.e., all weak solutions coincide with the (unique) strong solution as long as the latter exists in time. The results provide a solid mathematical ground to the qualitative behavior originally predicted by Zhang, Levy, and Fert in [Physical Review Letters 88 (2002)] in ferromagnetic multilayers.

The paper carries on our previous investigations on the complementary version of Purcell's rotator: a low-Reynolds-number swimmer composed of three balls of equal radii. In the asymptotic regime of very long arms, the Stokes induced governing dynamics is derived and then experimented in the context of energy minimizing self-propulsion characterized in the first part of the paper.

We consider the time-dependent Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. We prove that each weak solution coincides with the (unique) strong solution, as long as the latter exists in time. Unlike available results in the literature, our analysis also includes the physically relevant lower-order terms like Zeeman contribution, anisotropy, stray field, and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (which accounts for the emergence of magnetic Skyrmions). Moreover, our proof gives a template on how to approach weak-strong uniqueness for even more complicated problems, where LLG is (nonlinearly) coupled to other (nonlinear) PDE systems.

We revisit the basic variational formulation of the minimization problem associated with the micromagnetic energy, with an emphasis on the treatment of the stray field contribution to the energy, which is intrinsically non-local. Under minimal assumptions, we establish three distinct variational principles for the stray field energy: a minimax principle involving magnetic scalar potential and two minimization principles involving magnetic vector potential. We then apply our formulations to the dimension reduction problem for thin ferromagnetic shells of arbitrary shapes.

We prove a local regularity result for distributional solutions of the Poisson's equation with $L^p$ data. We use a very short argument based on Weyl's lemma and Riesz-Fr\'echet representation theorem.

We study the asymptotic behavior of the minimisers of the Landau-de Gennes model for nematic liquid crystals in a two-dimensional domain in the regime of small elastic constant. At leading order in the elasticity constant, the minimum-energy configurations can be described by the simpler Oseen-Frank theory. Using a refined notion of $\Gamma$-development we recover Landau-de Gennes corrections to the Oseen-Frank energy. We provide an explicit characterisation of minimizing $Q$-tensors at this order in terms of optimal Oseen-Frank directors and observe the emerging biaxiality. We apply our results to distinguish between optimal configurations in the class of conformal director fields of fixed topological degree saturating the lower bound for the Oseen-Frank energy.

The main aim of this note is to prove a sharp Poincar\'e-type inequality for vector-valued functions on $\mathbb{S}^2$, that naturally emerges in the context of micromagnetics of spherical thin films., Comment: 2 figures

Based on the Uzawa algorithm, we consider an adaptive finite element method for the Stokes system. We prove linear convergence with optimal algebraic rates for the residual estimator (which is equivalent to the total error), if the arising linear systems are solved iteratively, e.g., by PCG. Our analysis avoids the use of discrete efficiency of the estimator. Unlike prior work, our adaptive Uzawa algorithm can thus avoid to discretize the given data and does not rely on an interior node property for the refinement.

Combining ideas from [Alouges et al. (Numer. Math., 128, 2014)] and [Praetorius et al. (Comput. Math. Appl., 2017)], we propose a numerical algorithm for the integration of the nonlinear and time-dependent Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation which is unconditionally convergent, formally (almost) second-order in time, and requires only the solution of one linear system per time-step. Only the exchange contribution is integrated implicitly in time, while the lower-order contributions like the computationally expensive stray field are treated explicitly in time. Then, we extend the scheme to the coupled system of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation with the eddy current approximation of Maxwell equations (ELLG). Unlike existing schemes for this system, the new integrator is unconditionally convergent, (almost) second-order in time, and requires only the solution of two linear systems per time-step.

A now classical result in the theory of variable Lebesgue spaces due to Lerner [A. K. Lerner, On modular inequalities in variable $L^p$ spaces, Archiv der Math. 85 (2005), no. 6, 538-543] is that a modular inequality for the Hardy-Littlewood maximal function in $L^{p(\cdot)}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ holds if and only if the exponent is constant. We generalize this result and give a new and simpler proof. We then find necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of the weaker modular inequality \[ \int_\Omega Mf(x)^{p(x)}\,dx \ \leq c_1 \int_\Omega |f(x)|^{q(x)}\,dx + c_2, \] where $c_1,\,c_2$ are non-negative constants and $\Omega$ is any measurable subset of $\mathbb{R}^n$. As a corollary we get sufficient conditions for the modular inequality \[ \int_\Omega |Tf(x)|^{p(x)}\,dx \ \leq c_1 \int_\Omega |f(x)|^{q(x)}\,dx + c_2, \] where $T$ is any operator that is bounded on $L^p(\Omega)$, $1

The paper is about the parking 3-sphere swimmer ($\text{sPr}_3$). This is a low-Reynolds number model swimmer composed of three balls of equal radii. The three balls can move along three horizontal axes (supported in the same plane) that mutually meet at the center of $\text{sPr}_3$ with angles of $120^{\circ}$ . The governing dynamical system is introduced and the implications of its geometric symmetries revealed. It is then shown that, in the first order range of small strokes, optimal periodic strokes are ellipses embedded in 3d space, i.e. closed curves of the form $t\in [0,2\pi] \mapsto (\cos t)u + (\sin t)v$ for suitable orthogonal vectors $u$ and $v$ of $\mathbb{R}^3$. A simple analytic expression for the vectors $u$ and $v$ is derived. The results of the paper are used in a second article where the real physical dynamics of $\text{sPr}_3$ is analyzed in the asymptotic range of very long arms., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures

Recently a significant interest in ferromagnetic curved thin films has appeared. In particular, thin spherical shells are currently of great interest due to their capability to support skyrmion solutions which can be stabilized by curvature effects only, in contrast to the planar case where the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is required. This paper aims to a $\Gamma$-asymptotic analysis of the micromagnetic energy functional, when the shell is generated, like in the case of a sphere, by a bounded, convex and smooth surface.

The aim of the paper is to introduce an alternative notion of two-scale convergence which gives a more natural modeling approach to the homogenization of partial differential equations with periodically oscillating coefficients: while removing the bother of the admissibility of test functions, it nevertheless simplifies the proof of all the standard compactness results which made classical two-scale convergence very worthy of interest: bounded sequences in $L^2_{\sharp}[Y,L^2(\Omega)]$ and $L^2_{\sharp}[Y,H^1(\Omega)]$ are proven to be relatively compact with respect to this new type of convergence. The strengths of the notion are highlighted on the classical homogenization problem of linear second-order elliptic equations for which first order boundary corrector-type results are also established. Eventually, possible weaknesses of the method are pointed out on a nonlinear problem: the weak two-scale compactness result for $\mathbb{S}^2$-valued stationary harmonic maps., Comment: 20 pages, 2 Figures

The objective of this paper is to present a modern and concise new derivation for the explicit expression of the interior and exterior Newtonian potential generated by homogeneous ellipsoidal domains in $\mathbb{R}^N$ (with $N \geqslant 3$). The very short argument is essentially based on the application of Reynolds transport theorem in connection with Green-Stokes integral representation formula for smooth functions on bounded domains of $\mathbb{R}^N$, which permits to reduce the N-dimensional problem to a 1-dimensional one. Due to its physical relevance, a separate section is devoted to the the derivation of the demagnetizing factors of the general ellipsoid which are one of the most fundamental quantities in ferromagnetism.

Nowadays, nonhomogeneous and periodic ferromagnetic materials are the subject of a growing interest. Actually such periodic configurations often combine the attributes of the constituent materials, while sometimes, their properties can be strikingly different from the properties of the different constituents. These periodic configurations can be therefore used to achieve physical and chemical properties difficult to achieve with homogeneous materials. To predict the magnetic behavior of such composite materials is of prime importance for applications. The main objective of this paper is to perform, by means of Gamma-convergence and two-scale convergence, a rigorous derivation of the homogenized Gibbs-Landau free energy functional associated to a composite periodic ferromagnetic material, i.e. a ferromagnetic material in which the heterogeneities are periodically distributed inside the ferromagnetic media. We thus describe the Gamma-limit of the Gibbs-Landau free energy functional, as the period over which the heterogeneities are distributed inside the ferromagnetic body shrinks to zero., Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure. Keywords: Micromagnetics, Periodic Homogenization, Gamma Convergence, Two-scale Convergence, Demagnetizing Field