The Vanishing Moment Method for Fully Nonlinear Second Order Partial Differential Equations: Formulation, Theory, and Numerical Analysis

The vanishing moment method was introduced by the authors in [37] as a reliable methodology for computing viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear second order partial differential equations (PDEs), in particular, using Galerkin-type numerical methods such as finite element methods, spectral methods, and discontinuous Galerkin methods, a task which has not been practicable in the past. The crux of the vanishing moment method is the simple idea of approximating a fully nonlinear second order PDE by a family (parametrized by a small parameter \vepsi) of quasilinear higher order (in particular, fourth order) PDEs. The primary objectives of this book are to present a detailed convergent analysis for the method in the radial symmetric case and to carry out a comprehensive finite element numerical analysis for the vanishing moment equations (i.e., the regularized fourth order PDEs). Abstract methodological and convergence analysis frameworks of conforming finite element methods and mixed finite element methods are first developed for fully nonlinear second order PDEs in general settings. The abstract frameworks are then applied to three prototypical nonlinear equations, namely, the Monge-Amp\`ere equation, the equation of prescribed Gauss curvature, and the infinity-Laplacian equation. Numerical experiments are also presented for each problem to validate the theoretical error estimate results and to gauge the efficiency of the proposed numerical methods and the vanishing moment methodology.Comment: 141 pages, 16 figure

Functional Inequalities for Particle Systems on Polish Spaces

Various Poincare-Sobolev type inequalities are studied for a reaction-diffusion model of particle systems on Polish spaces. The systems we consider consist of finite particles which are killed or produced at certain rates, while particles in the system move on the Polish space interacting with one another (i.e. diffusion). Thus, the corresponding Dirichlet form, which we call reaction-diffusion Dirichlet form, consists of two parts: the diffusion part induced by certain Markov processes on the product spaces $E^n (n \geq 1)$ which determine the motion of particles, and the reaction part induced by a $Q$-process on $\mathbb Z_+$ and a sequence of reference probability measures, where the $Q$-process determines the variation of the number of particles and the reference measures describe the locations of newly produced particles. We prove that the validity of Poincare and weak Poincare inequalities are essentially due to the pure reaction part, i.e. either of these inequalities holds if and only if it holds for the pure reaction Dirichlet form, or equivalently, for the corresponding $Q$-process. But under a mild condition, stronger inequalities rely on both parts: the reaction-diffusion Dirichlet form satisfies a super Poincare inequality (e.g. the log-Sobolev inequality) if and only if so do both the corresponding $Q$-process and the diffusion part. Explicit estimates of constants in the inequalities are derived. Finally, some specific examples are presented to illustrate the main results.Comment: 22 pages, BiBoS-Preprint no. 04-08-153, to appear in Potential Analysi