18 research outputs found
On the number of solutions of a transcendental equation arising in the theory of gravitational lensing
The equation in the title describes the number of bright images of a point
source under lensing by an elliptic object with isothermal density. We prove
that this equation has at most 6 solutions. Any number of solutions from 1 to 6
can actually occur.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figure
Doubly connected minimal surfaces and extremal harmonic mappings
The concept of a conformal deformation has two natural extensions:
quasiconformal and harmonic mappings. Both classes do not preserve the
conformal type of the domain, however they cannot change it in an arbitrary
way. Doubly connected domains are where one first observes nontrivial conformal
invariants. Herbert Groetzsch and Johannes C. C. Nitsche addressed this issue
for quasiconformal and harmonic mappings, respectively. Combining these
concepts we obtain sharp estimates for quasiconformal harmonic mappings between
doubly connected domains. We then apply our results to the Cauchy problem for
minimal surfaces, also known as the Bjorling problem. Specifically, we obtain a
sharp estimate of the modulus of a doubly connected minimal surface that
evolves from its inner boundary with a given initial slope.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures. Minor edits, references adde
Mappings of least Dirichlet energy and their Hopf differentials
The paper is concerned with mappings between planar domains having least
Dirichlet energy. The existence and uniqueness (up to a conformal change of
variables in the domain) of the energy-minimal mappings is established within
the class of strong limits of homeomorphisms in the
Sobolev space , a result of considerable interest in the
mathematical models of Nonlinear Elasticity. The inner variation leads to the
Hopf differential and its trajectories.
For a pair of doubly connected domains, in which has finite conformal
modulus, we establish the following principle:
A mapping is energy-minimal if and only if
its Hopf-differential is analytic in and real along the boundary of .
In general, the energy-minimal mappings may not be injective, in which case
one observes the occurrence of cracks in . Nevertheless, cracks are
triggered only by the points in the boundary of where fails to be
convex. The general law of formation of cracks reads as follows:
Cracks propagate along vertical trajectories of the Hopf differential from
the boundary of toward the interior of where they eventually terminate
before making a crosscut.Comment: 51 pages, 4 figure