A compactness lemma and its application to the existence of minimizers for the liquid drop model

The ancient Gamow liquid drop model of nuclear energies has had a renewed life as an interesting problem in the calculus of variations: Find a set $\Omega \subset \mathbb R^3$ with given volume A that minimizes the sum of its surface area and its Coulomb self energy. A ball minimizes the former and maximizes the latter, but the conjecture is that a ball is always a minimizer -- when there is a minimizer. Even the existence of minimizers for this interesting geometric problem has not been shown in general. We prove the existence of the absolute minimizer (over all $A$) of the energy divided by $A$ (the binding energy per particle). A second result of our work is a general method for showing the existence of optimal sets in geometric minimization problems, which we call the `method of the missing mass'. A third point is the extension of the pulling back compactness lemma from $W^{1,p}$ to $BV$.Comment: 16 page

Sharp constants in several inequalities on the Heisenberg group

We derive the sharp constants for the inequalities on the Heisenberg group H^n whose analogues on Euclidean space R^n are the well known Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequalities. Only one special case had been known previously, due to Jerison-Lee more than twenty years ago. From these inequalities we obtain the sharp constants for their duals, which are the Sobolev inequalities for the Laplacian and conformally invariant fractional Laplacians. By considering limiting cases of these inequalities sharp constants for the analogues of the Onofri and log-Sobolev inequalities on H^n are obtained. The methodology is completely different from that used to obtain the R^n inequalities and can be (and has been) used to give a new, rearrangement free, proof of the HLS inequalities.Comment: 30 pages; addition of Corollary 2.3 and some minor changes; to appear in Annals of Mathematic

Norms of quantum Gaussian multi-mode channels

We compute the $\mathcal S^p \to \mathcal S^p$ norm of a general Gaussian gauge-covariant multi-mode channel for any $1\leq p<\infty$, where $\mathcal S^p$ is a Schatten space. As a consequence, we verify the Gaussian optimizer conjecture and the multiplicativity conjecture in these cases.Comment: 9 pages; minor changes; to appear in J. Math. Phy

Inversion positivity and the sharp Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality

We give a new proof of certain cases of the sharp HLS inequality. Instead of symmetric decreasing rearrangement it uses the reflection positivity of inversions in spheres. In doing this we extend a characterization of the minimizing functions due to Li and Zhu.Comment: 15 pages; references added and minor change

Maximizers for the Stein-Tomas inequality

We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the precompactness of all optimizing sequences for the Stein-Tomas inequality. In particular, if a well-known conjecture about the optimal constant in the Strichartz inequality is true, we obtain the existence of an optimizer in the Stein-Tomas inequality. Our result is valid in any dimension.Comment: 37 page

Hardy-Lieb-Thirring inequalities for fractional Schrödinger operators

We show that the Lieb-Thirring inequalities on moments of negative eigenvalues of Schrödinger-like operators remain true, with possibly different constants, when the critical Hardy-weight C │x│^(-2) is subtracted from the Laplace operator. We do so by first establishing a Sobolev inequality for such operators. Similar results are true for fractional powers of the Laplacian and the Hardy-weight and, in particular, for relativistic Schrödinger operators. We also allow for the inclusion of magnetic vector potentials. As an application, we extend, for the first time, the proof of stability of relativistic matter with magnetic fields all the way up to the critical value of the nuclear charge Zɑ = 2/π, for ɑ less than some critical value

On an Extension Problem for Density Matrices

We investigate the problem of the existence of a density matrix rho on the product of three Hilbert spaces with given marginals on the pair (1,2) and the pair (2,3). While we do not solve this problem completely we offer partial results in the form of some necessary and some sufficient conditions on the two marginals. The quantum case differs markedly from the classical (commutative) case, where the obvious necessary compatibility condition suffices, namely, trace_1 (rho_{12}) = \trace_3 (rho_{23}).Comment: 12 pages late

Ground state energy of large polaron systems

The last unsolved problem about the many-polaron system, in the Pekar-Tomasevich approximation, is the case of bosons with the electron-electron Coulomb repulsion of strength exactly 1 (the 'neutral case'). We prove that the ground state energy, for large $N$, goes exactly as $-N^{7/5}$, and we give upper and lower bounds on the asymptotic coefficient that agree to within a factor of $2^{2/5}$.Comment: 16 page