644 research outputs found
Laplacian Growth, Elliptic Growth, and Singularities of the Schwarz Potential
The Schwarz function has played an elegant role in understanding and in
generating new examples of exact solutions to the Laplacian growth (or "Hele-
Shaw") problem in the plane. The guiding principle in this connection is the
fact that "non-physical" singularities in the "oil domain" of the Schwarz
function are stationary, and the "physical" singularities obey simple dynamics.
We give an elementary proof that the same holds in any number of dimensions for
the Schwarz potential, introduced by D. Khavinson and H. S. Shapiro [17]
(1989). A generalization is also given for the so-called "elliptic growth"
problem by defining a generalized Schwarz potential. New exact solutions are
constructed, and we solve inverse problems of describing the driving
singularities of a given flow. We demonstrate, by example, how \mathbb{C}^n -
techniques can be used to locate the singularity set of the Schwarz potential.
One of our methods is to prolong available local extension theorems by
constructing "globalizing families". We make three conjectures in potential
theory relating to our investigation
Bounds and extremal domains for Robin eigenvalues with negative boundary parameter
We present some new bounds for the first Robin eigenvalue with a negative
boundary parameter. These include the constant volume problem, where the bounds
are based on the shrinking coordinate method, and a proof that in the fixed
perimeter case the disk maximises the first eigenvalue for all values of the
parameter. This is in contrast with what happens in the constant area problem,
where the disk is the maximiser only for small values of the boundary
parameter. We also present sharp upper and lower bounds for the first
eigenvalue of the ball and spherical shells.
These results are complemented by the numerical optimisation of the first
four and two eigenvalues in 2 and 3 dimensions, respectively, and an evaluation
of the quality of the upper bounds obtained. We also study the bifurcations
from the ball as the boundary parameter becomes large (negative).Comment: 26 pages, 20 figure
- …