The squares of the Laplacian-Dirichlet eigenfunctions are generically linearly independent

The paper deals with the genericity of domain-dependent spectral properties of the Laplacian-Dirichlet operator. In particular we prove that, generically, the squares of the eigenfunctions form a free family. We also show that the spectrum is generically non-resonant. The results are obtained by applying global perturbations of the domains and exploiting analytic perturbation properties. The work is motivated by two applications: an existence result for the problem of maximizing the rate of exponential decay of a damped membrane and an approximate controllability result for the bilinear Schr\"odinger equation

How to play a disc brake

We consider a gyroscopic system under the action of small dissipative and non-conservative positional forces, which has its origin in the models of rotating bodies of revolution being in frictional contact. The spectrum of the unperturbed gyroscopic system forms a "spectral mesh" in the plane "frequency -gyroscopic parameter" with double semi-simple purely imaginary eigenvalues at zero value of the gyroscopic parameter. It is shown that dissipative forces lead to the splitting of the semi-simple eigenvalue with the creation of the so-called "bubble of instability" - a ring in the three-dimensional space of the gyroscopic parameter and real and imaginary parts of eigenvalues, which corresponds to complex eigenvalues. In case of full dissipation with a positive-definite damping matrix the eigenvalues of the ring have negative real parts making the bubble a latent source of instability because it can "emerge" to the region of eigenvalues with positive real parts due to action of both indefinite damping and non-conservative positional forces. In the paper, the instability mechanism is analytically described with the use of the perturbation theory of multiple eigenvalues. As an example stability of a rotating circular string constrained by a stationary load system is studied in detail. The theory developed seems to give a first clear explanation of the mechanism of self-excited vibrations in the rotating structures in frictional contact, that is responsible for such well-known phenomena of acoustics of friction as the squealing disc brake and the singing wine glass.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, Presented at BIRS 07w5068 Workshop "Geometric Mechanics: Continuous and discrete, finite and infinite dimensional", August 12-17, 2007, Banff, Canad

On the behavior of clamped plates under large compression

We determine the asymptotic behavior of eigenvalues of clamped plates under large compression by relating this problem to eigenvalues of the Laplacian with Robin boundary conditions. Using the method of fundamental solutions, we then carry out a numerical study of the extremal domains for the first eigenvalue, from which we see that these depend on the value of the compression, and start developing a boundary structure as this parameter is increased. The corresponding number of nodal domains of the first eigenfunction of the extremal domain also increases with the compression.This work was partially supported by the Funda ̧c ̃ao para a Ciˆencia e a Tecnologia(Portugal) through the program “Investigador FCT” with reference IF/00177/2013 and the projectExtremal spectral quantities and related problems(PTDC/MAT-CAL/4334/2014).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Local integration by parts and Pohozaev identities for higher order fractional Laplacians

We establish an integration by parts formula in bounded domains for the higher order fractional Laplacian $(-\Delta)^s$ with $s>1$. We also obtain the Pohozaev identity for this operator. Both identities involve local boundary terms, and they extend the identities obtained by the authors in the case $s\in(0,1)$. As an immediate consequence of these results, we obtain a unique continuation property for the eigenfunctions $(-\Delta)^s\phi=\lambda\phi$ in $\Omega$, $\phi\equiv0$ in $\mathbb R^n\setminus\Omega$.Comment: The sign of the boundary term in Theorem 1.5 has been correcte

Spatial hole burning in thin-disk lasers and twisted-mode operation

Spatial hole burning prevents single-frequency operation of thin-disk lasers when the thin disk is used as a folding mirror. We present an evaluation of the saturation effects in the disk for disks acting as end-mirrors and as folding-mirrors explaining one of the main obstacles towards single-frequency operation. It is shown that a twisted-mode scheme based on a multi-order quarter-wave plate combined with a polarizer provides an almost complete suppression of spatial hole burning and creates an additional wavelength selectivity that enforces efficient single-frequency operation.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure

Drifting Oscillations in Axion Monodromy

We study the pattern of oscillations in the primordial power spectrum in axion monodromy inflation, accounting for drifts in the oscillation period that can be important for comparing to cosmological data. In these models the potential energy has a monomial form over a super-Planckian field range, with superimposed modulations whose size is model-dependent. The amplitude and frequency of the modulations are set by the expectation values of moduli fields. We show that during the course of inflation, the diminishing energy density can induce slow adjustments of the moduli, changing the modulations. We provide templates capturing the effects of drifting moduli, as well as drifts arising in effective field theory models based on softly broken discrete shift symmetries, and we estimate the precision required to detect a drifting period. A non-drifting template suffices over a wide range of parameters, but for the highest frequencies of interest, or for sufficiently strong drift, it is necessary to include parameters characterizing the change in frequency over the e-folds visible in the CMB. We use these templates to perform a preliminary search for drifting oscillations in a part of the parameter space in the Planck nominal mission data.Comment: 48 pages, 5 figure