Search

We consider the mixed local-nonlocal semi-linear elliptic equations driven by the superposition of Brownian and L\'evy processes \begin{equation*} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} - \Delta u + (-\Delta)^s u = g(x,u) & \hbox{in $\Omega$,} u=0 & \hbox{in $\mathbb{R}^n\backslash\Omega$.} \\ \end{array} \right. \end{equation*} Under mild assumptions on the nonlinear term $g$, we show the $L^\infty$ boundedness of any weak solution (either not changing sign or sign-changing) by the Moser iteration method. Moreover, when $s\in (0, \frac{1}{2}]$, we obtain that the solution is unique and actually belongs to $C^{1,\alpha}(\overline{\Omega})$ for any $\alpha\in (0,1)$., Comment: 26 pages,to appear at Mathematische Zeitschrift

We consider here a new type of mixed local and nonlocal equation under suitable Neumann conditions. We discuss the spectral properties associated to a weighted eigenvalue problem and present a global bound for subsolutions. The Neumann condition that we take into account comprises, as a particular case, the one that has been recently introduced in [S. Dipierro, X. Ros-Oton, E. Valdinoci, Rev. Mat. Iberoam. (2017)]. Also, the results that we present here find a natural application to a logistic equation motivated by biological problems that has been recently considered in [S. Dipierro, E. Proietti Lippi, E. Valdinoci, preprint (2020)].

We extend the classical Bernstein technique to the setting of integro-differential operators. As a consequence, we provide first and one-sided second derivative estimates for solutions to fractional equations, including some convex fully nonlinear equations of order smaller than two -- for which we prove uniform estimates as their order approaches two. Our method is robust enough to be applied to some Pucci-type extremal equations and to obstacle problems for fractional operators, although several of the results are new even in the linear case. We also raise some intriguing open questions, one of them concerning the "pure" linear fractional Laplacian, another one being the validity of one-sided second derivative estimates for Pucci-type convex equations associated to linear operators with general kernels., Comment: To appear in Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal

We investigate the convergence as $p\searrow 1$ of the minimizers of the $W^{s,p}$-energy for $s\in (0,1)$ and $p\in (1,\infty )$ to those of the $W^{s,1}$-energy, both in the pointwise sense and by means of $\Gamma $-convergence. We also address the convergence of the corresponding Euler–Lagrange equations and the equivalence between minimizers and weak solutions. As ancillary results, we study some regularity issues regarding minimizers of the $W^{s,1}$-energy.

We consider an energy functional combining the square of the local oscillation of a one-dimensional function with a double-well potential. We establish the existence of minimal heteroclinic solutions connecting the two wells of the potential. This existence result cannot be accomplished by standard methods, due to the lack of compactness properties. In addition, we investigate the main properties of these heteroclinic connections. We show that these minimizers are monotone, and therefore they satisfy a suitable Euler–Lagrange equation. We also prove that, differently from the classical cases arising in ordinary differential equations, in this context the heteroclinic connections are not necessarily smooth, and not even continuous (in fact, they can be piecewise constant). Also, we show that heteroclinics are not necessarily unique up to a translation, which is also in contrast with the classical setting. Furthermore, we investigate the associated Dirichlet problem, studying existence, uniqueness and partial regularity properties, providing explicit solutions in terms of the external data and of the forcing source, and exhibiting an example of discontinuous solution.

We consider an elliptic equation in a cone, endowed with (possibly inhomogeneous) Neumann conditions. The operator and the forcing terms can also allow non-Lipschitz singularities at the vertex of the cone. In this setting, we provide unique continuation results, both in terms of interior and boundary points. The proof relies on a suitable Almgren-type frequency formula with remainders. As a byproduct, we obtain classification results for blow-up limits.

We prove that nonlocal minimal graphs in the plane exhibit generically stickiness effects and boundary discontinuities. More precisely, we show that if a nonlocal minimal graph in a slab is continuous up to the boundary, then arbitrarily small perturbations of the far-away data produce boundary discontinuities. Hence, either a nonlocal minimal graph is discontinuous at the boundary, or a small perturbation of the prescribed conditions produces boundary discontinuities. The proof relies on a sliding method combined with a fine boundary regularity analysis, based on a discontinuity/smoothness alternative. Namely, we establish that nonlocal minimal graphs are either discontinuous at the boundary or their derivative is Holder continuous up to the boundary. In this spirit, we prove that the boundary regularity of nonlocal minimal graphs in the plane “jumps” from discontinuous to $$C^{1,\gamma }$$, with no intermediate possibilities allowed. In particular, we deduce that the nonlocal curvature equation is always satisfied up to the boundary. As an interesting byproduct of our analysis, one obtains a detailed understanding of the “switch” between the regime of continuous (and hence differentiable) nonlocal minimal graphs to that of discontinuous (and hence with differentiable inverse) ones.

We provide a fractional counterpart of the classical results by Schwarz and Malmheden on harmonic functions. From that we obtain a representation formula for $s$-harmonic functions as a linear superposition of weighted classical harmonic functions which also entails a new proof of the fractional Harnack inequality. This proof also leads to optimal constants for the fractional Harnack inequality in the ball., Mathematics in Engineering, in press

We study a nonlocal capillarity problem with interaction kernels that are possibly anisotropic and not necessarily invariant under scaling. In particular, the lack of scale invariance will be modeled via two different fractional exponents $s_1, s_2\in (0,1)$ which take into account the possibility that the container and the environment present different features with respect to particle interactions. We determine a nonlocal Young's law for the contact angle and discuss the unique solvability of the corresponding equation in terms of the interaction kernels and of the relative adhesion coefficient.

We consider nonlocal minimal surfaces in a cylinder with prescribed datum given by the complement of a slab. We show that when the width of the slab is large the minimizers are disconnected and when the width of the slab is small the minimizers are connected. This feature is in agreement with the classical case of the minimal surfaces. Nevertheless, we show that when the width of the slab is large the minimizers are not flat discs, as it happens in the classical setting, and, in particular, in dimension 2 2 we provide a quantitative bound on the stickiness property exhibited by the minimizers. Moreover, differently from the classical case, we show that when the width of the slab is small then the minimizers completely adhere to the side of the cylinder, thus providing a further example of stickiness phenomenon.

We introduce a suitable notion of integral operators (comprising the fractional Laplacian as a particular case) acting on functions with minimal requirements at infinity. For these functions, the classical definition would lead to divergent expressions, thus we replace it with an appropriate framework obtained by a cut-off procedure. The notion obtained in this way quotients out the polynomials which produce the divergent pattern once the cut-off is removed. We also present results of stability under the appropriate notion of convergence and compatibility results between polynomials of different orders. Additionally, we address the solvability of the Dirichlet problem. The theory is developed in general in the pointwise sense. A viscosity counterpart is also presented under the additional assumption that the interaction kernel has a sign, in conformity with the maximum principle structure., To appear in Fract. Calc. Appl. Anal

We prove the Harnack inequality for antisymmetric $s$-harmonic functions, and more generally for solutions of fractional equations with zero-th order terms, in a general domain. This may be used in conjunction with the method of moving planes to obtain quantitative stability results for symmetry and overdetermined problems for semilinear equations driven by the fractional Laplacian. The proof is split into two parts: an interior Harnack inequality away from the plane of symmetry, and a boundary Harnack inequality close to the plane of symmetry. We prove these results by first establishing the weak Harnack inequality for super-solutions and local boundedness for sub-solutions in both the interior and boundary case. En passant, we also obtain a new mean value formula for antisymmetric $s$-harmonic functions.

We consider a forager diffusing via a fractional heat equation and we introduce several efficiency functionals whose optimality is discussed in relation to the Lévy exponent of the evolution equation. Several biological scenarios, such as a target close to the forager, a sparse environment, a target located away from the forager and two targets are specifically taken into account. The optimal strategies of each of these configurations are here analyzed explicitly also with the aid of some special functions of classical flavor and the results are confronted with the existing paradigms of the Lévy foraging hypothesis. Interestingly, one discovers bifurcation phenomena in which a sudden switch occurs between an optimal (but somehow unreliable) Lévy foraging pattern of inverse square law type and a less ideal (but somehow more secure) classical Brownian motion strategy. Additionally, optimal foraging strategies can be detected in the vicinity of the Brownian one even in cases in which the Brownian one is pessimizing an efficiency functional., Journal of Mathematical Biology

We study symmetry and quantitative approximate symmetry for an overdetermined problem involving the fractional torsion problem in a bounded open set Ω ⊂ R n \Omega \subset \mathbb R^n . More precisely, we prove that if the fractional torsion function has a C 1 C^1 level surface which is parallel to the boundary ∂ Ω \partial \Omega then Ω \Omega is a ball. If instead we assume that the solution is close to a constant on a parallel surface to the boundary, then we quantitatively prove that Ω \Omega is close to a ball. Our results use techniques which are peculiar of the nonlocal case as, for instance, quantitative versions of fractional Hopf boundary point lemma and boundary Harnack estimates for antisymmetric functions. We also provide an application to the study of rural-urban fringes in population settlements.

We construct heteroclinic orbits for a strongly nonlocal integro-differential equation. Since the energy associated to the equation is infinite in such strongly nonlocal regime, the proof, based on variational methods, relies on a renormalized energy functional, exploits a perturbation method of viscosity type, combined with an auxiliary penalization method, and develops a free boundary theory for a double obstacle problem of mixed local and nonlocal type. The description of the stationary positions for the atom dislocation function in a perturbed crystal, as given by the Peierls–Nabarro model, is a particular case of the result presented.

We introduce a notion of fractional Laplacian for functions which grow more than linearly at infinity. In such case, the operator is not defined in the classical sense: nevertheless, we can give an ad-hoc definition which can be useful for applications in various fields, such as blowup and free boundary problems. In this setting, when the solution has a polynomial growth at infinity, the right hand side of the equation is not just a function, but an equivalence class of functions modulo polynomials of a fixed order. We also give a sharp version of the Schauder estimates in this framework, in which the full smooth Hölder norm of the solution is controlled in terms of the seminorm of the nonlinearity. Though the method presented is very general and potentially works for general nonlocal operators, for clarity and concreteness we focus here on the case of the fractional Laplacian.

Using energy methods, we prove some power-law and exponential decay estimates for classical and nonlocal evolutionary equations. The results obtained are framed into a general setting, which comprise, among the others, equations involving both standard and Caputo time-derivative, complex valued magnetic operators, fractional porous media equations and nonlocal Kirchhoff operators. Both local and fractional space diffusion are taken into account, possibly in a nonlinear setting. The different quantitative behaviours, which distinguish polynomial decays from exponential ones, depend heavily on the structure of the time-derivative involved in the equation.

We provide an existence result for stationary fractional mean field game systems, with fractional exponent greater than 1/2. In the case in which the coupling is a nonlocal regularizing potential, we obtain existence of solutions under general assumptions on the Hamiltonian. In the case of local coupling, we restrict to the subcritical regime, that is the case in which the diffusion part of the operator dominates the Hamiltonian term. We consider both the case of local bounded coupling and of local unbounded coupling with power-type growth. In this second regime, we impose some conditions on the growth of the coupling and on the growth of the Hamiltonian with respect to the gradient term., Comment: 19 pages

We define a family of functionals, called \begin{document}$ p $\end{document} -oscillation functionals, that can be interpreted as discrete versions of the classical total variation functional for \begin{document}$ p = 1 $\end{document} and of the \begin{document}$ p $\end{document} -Dirichlet functionals for \begin{document}$ p>1 $\end{document} . We introduce the notion of minimizers and prove existence of solutions to the Dirichlet problem. Finally we provide a description of Class A minimizers (i.e. minimizers under compact perturbations) in dimension \begin{document}$ 1 $\end{document} .

In this paper we study smooth solutions to a fractional mean curvature flow equation. We establish a comparison principle and consequences such as uniqueness and finite extinction time for compact solutions. We also establish evolutions equations for fractional geometric quantities that yield preservation of certain quantities (such as positive fractional curvature) and smoothness of graphical evolutions., Comment: minor corrections

We prove radial symmetry for bounded nonnegative solutions of a weighted anisotropic problem. Given the anisotropic setting that we deal with, the term "radial" is understood in the Finsler framework. In the whole space, J. Serra obtained the symmetry result in the isotropic unweighted setting. In this case we provide the extension of his result to the anisotropic setting. This provides a generalization to the anisotropic setting of a celebrated result due to Gidas-Ni-Nirenberg and such a generalization is new even for in the case of linear operators whenever the dimension is greater than 2. In proper cones, the results presented are new even in the isotropic and unweighted setting for suitable nonlinear cases. Even for the previously known case of unweighted isotropic setting, the present paper provides an approach to the problem by exploiting integral (in)equalities which is new for $N>2$: this complements the corresponding symmetry result obtained via the moving planes method by Berestycki-Pacella.

We consider a Frenkel–Kontorova system of harmonic oscillators in a two-dimensional Euclidean lattice and we obtain a quantitative estimate on the angular function of the equilibria. The proof relies on a PDE method related to a classical conjecture by E. De Giorgi, also in view of an elegant technique based on complex variables that was introduced by A. Farina. In the discrete setting, a careful analysis of the reminders is needed to exploit these types of methodologies inspired by continuum models.

We consider here a problem of population dynamics modeled on a logistic equation with both classical and nonlocal diffusion, possibly in combination with a pollination term. The environment considered is a niche with zero-flux, according to a new type of Neumann condition. We discuss the situations that are more favorable for the survival of the species, in terms of the first positive eigenvalue. Quite surprisingly, the eigenvalue analysis for the one dimensional case is structurally different than the higher dimensional setting, and it sensibly depends on the nonlocal character of the dispersal. The mathematical framework of this problem takes into consideration the equation $$ -\alpha\Delta u +\beta(-\Delta)^su =(m-\mu u)u+\tau\;J\star u \qquad{\mbox{in }}\; \Omega,$$ where $m$ can change sign. This equation is endowed with a set of Neumann condition that combines the classical normal derivative prescription and the nonlocal condition introduced in [S. Dipierro, X. Ros-Oton, E. Valdinoci, Rev. Mat. Iberoam. (2017)]. We will establish the existence of a minimal solution for this problem and provide a throughout discussion on whether it is possible to obtain non-trivial solutions (corresponding to the survival of the population). The investigation will rely on a quantitative analysis of the first eigenvalue of the associated problem and on precise asymptotics for large lower and upper bounds of the resource. In this, we also analyze the role played by the optimization strategy in the distribution of the resources, showing concrete examples that are unfavorable for survival, in spite of the large resources that are available in the environment.

In this paper we investigate, through numerical studies, the dynamical evolutions encoded in a linear one-dimensional nonlocal equation arising in peridynamcs. The different propagation regimes ranging from the hyperbolic to the dispersive, induced by the nonlocal feature of the equation, are carefully analyzed. The study of an initial value Riemann-like problem suggests the formation of a singularity., Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures