Analysis and Partial Differential Equations Seminar, Fall 2009

 

Mondays at 4PM in Krieger 304

 

 

Date

 

Speaker

Title

  September 14

 

Chris Sogge
Johns Hopkins University

 Kakeya-Nikodym averages and Lp norms of eigenfunctions

  September 21

 

Matei Machedon
University of Maryland

 Quantum Dynamics of Many-Body Systems, the Hartree Equation, and Beyond

  October 5

 

Oana Ivanovici
Johns Hopkins University

 Counterexamples to the Strichartz estimates for the wave equation in domains

  October 12

 

Christina Sormani
CUNY Graduate Center and Lehman College

 The intrinsic flat distance between Riemannian manifolds

  November 2

 

Fabrice Planchon
Universitˇ Paris 13

 On uniqueness for the Cauchy problem in general relativity

  November 9

 

Dmitry Jakobson
McGill University

 Estimates from below: spectral function, remainder in Weyl's law and resonances

  November 16

 

George Daskalopoulos
Brown University

 Superrigidity of hyperbolic DM-complexes

  November 23

 

Jason Metcalfe
University of North Carolina

 Long-time existence for quasilinear wave equations with small data in exterior domains

  November 30

 

Kate Okikiolu
University of California, San Diego

 TBA

  December 7
  3:00PM

 

Yng-Ing Lee
National Taiwan University

 Eternal solutions to Lagrangian Brakke flow

  December 7

 

Hans Lindblad
University of California, San Diego

 The weak null condition, global existence and the asymptotic behavior of solutions to Einstein's equations

 

Analysis and PDE Seminar Calendar for Past Semesters

 

Abstracts

 

 

September 14, Chris Sogge, Johns Hopkins University:  Kakeya-Nikodym averages and Lp norms of eigenfunctions.

 

On any compact Riemannian manifold $(M, g)$ of dimension $n$, the $L^2$-normalized eigenfunctions ${\phi_{\lambda}}$ satisfy $||\phi_{\lambda}||_{\infty} \leq C \lambda^{\frac{n-1}{2}}$ where $-\Delta \phi_{\lambda} = \lambda^2 \phi_{\lambda}.$ The bound is sharp in the class of all $(M, g)$ since it is obtained by zonal spherical harmonics on the standard $n$-sphere $S^n$. But of course, it is not sharp for many Riemannian manifolds, e.g. flat tori $\R^n/\Gamma$. We say that $S^n$, but not $\R^n/\Gamma$, is a Riemannian manifold with maximal eigenfunction growth. The problem which motivates this paper is to determine the $(M, g)$ with maximal eigenfunction growth. In an earlier work, two of us showed that such an $(M, g)$ must have a point $x$ where the set ${\mathcal L}_x$ of geodesic loops at $x$ has positive measure in $S^*_x M$. We strengthen this result here by showing that such a manifold must have a point where the set ${\mathcal R}_x$ of recurrent directions for the geodesic flow through x satisfies $|{\mathcal R}_x|>0$. We also show that if there are no such points, $L^2$-normalized quasimodes have sup-norms that are $o(\lambda^{n-1)/2})$, and, in the other extreme, we show that if there is a point blow-down $x$ at which the first return map for the flow is the identity, then there is a sequence of quasi-modes with $L^\infty$-norms that are $\Omega(\lambda^{(n-1)/2})$.

 

 

September 21, Matei Machedon, University of Maryland: Quantum Dynamics of Many-Body Systems, the Hartree Equation, and Beyond

 

This is joint work with M. Grillakis and D. Margetis. I will review how tensor products of solutions of the Hartree equation (or NLS) in 3+1 dimensions approximate the solution to a many-body Schr\"odinger equation in 3N +1 dimensions. This was implemented in several papers by Elgart, Erd\"os, Schlein and Yau.

 

Then  I will introduce a new, non-local Schr\"odinger equation in 6+1 dimensions, which provides a better approximations (at least for some potentials). This will go through the formalism of the second quantization (in the spirit of Hepp, Ginibre and Velo, Rodnianski and Schlein), and then use an algebraic trick related to the Segal-Shale-Weil representaion, whose application to this type of problem is new. The resulting second order correction is inspired by (but different from) that of the physicist Wu.

 

 

October 5, Oana Ivanovici, Johns Hopkins University: Counterexamples to the Strichartz estimates for the wave equation in domains

 

We prove that the Strichartz estimates for the wave equation inside a strictly convex domain \Omega of dimension 2 suffer losses when compared to the usual case \mathbb{R}^2, (at least for a subset of the usual range of indices) and this is due to microlocal phenomena such as caustics generated in arbitrarIly small time near the boundary.

 

 

October 12, Christina Sormani, CUNY Graduate Center and Lehman College: The intrinsic flat distance between Riemannian manifolds

 

We define a new distance between oriented Riemannian manifolds that we call the intrinsic flat distance based upon Ambrosio-Kirchheim's theory of integral currents on metric spaces. Limits of sequence of manifolds with a uniform upper bound on their volume and diameter are countably Hm rectifiable metric spaces with an orientation and multiplicity that we call integral current spaces.

 

In general the Gromov-Hausdorff and intrinsic flat limits do not agree. Intrinsic flat convergence is a weaker notion. We show that they do agree when the sequence of manifolds has nonnegative Ricci curvature and a uniform lower bound on volume and also when the sequence of manifolds has a uniform linear local geometric contractibility function.  These results are proven using work of Greene-Petersen, Gromov, Cheeger-Colding and Perelman.

 

This is joint work with S. Wenger.

 

 

November 2,  Fabrice Planchon, Universitˇ Paris 13: On uniqueness for the Cauchy problem in general relativity

Local (in time) existence for the Einstein vacuum equations has been known since the 50's and the pioneering work of Y. Choquet-Bruhat. Uniqueness, however, only holds for the reduced system of equations in wave coordinates, unless one is willing to allow more regularity on the data. We will present an elementary argument which allows to solve this gauge invariance problem, relying on a geometrical derivation and the cancellation properties of Ricci flat metrics. This is joint work with Igor Rodnianski.

 

 

November 9, Dmitry Jakobson, McGill University: Estimates from below: spectral function, remainder in Weyl's law and resonances

 

This is joint work with I. Polterovich, J. Toth and F. Naud.

We obtain asymptotic lower bounds for the spectral function of the Laplacian on compact manifolds. In the negatively curved case,
thermodynamic formalism for hyperbolic flows is applied to improve the estimates.

Our results can be considered pointwise versions (on a general manifold) of lower bounds (due to Hardy and Landau) for the error term in the
Gauss circle problem. We next discuss lower bounds for the remainder in WeylÕs law on negatively-curved surfaces. Our approach works in variable negative curvature, and is based on wave trace asymptotics for long times, thermodynamic formalism for hyperbolic flows, and small-scale microlocalization.

At the end, we shall discuss how to obtain logarithmic lower bound for the local density of resonances for infinite area, geometrically
finite surfaces, and how to improve them to polynomial lower bound for infinite index subgroups of arithmetic groups.

 

 

November 16, George Daskalopoulos, Brown University: Superrigidity of hyperbolic DM-complexes

 

We prove rank one and higher rank superrigidity for the isometry groups of a class of complexes which includes hyperbolic buildings as a special case. Our method uses harmonic maps to singular spaces.

 

 

November 23, Jason Metcalfe, University of North Carolina: Long-time existence for quasilinear wave equations with small data in exterior domains

 

We explore long time existence for quasilinear wave equations with small data in exterior domains.  In particular, we
explore nonlinearities which are permitted to depend on the solution not just its first and second derivatives.  The primary

new tool is a weighted Strichartz estimate which was developed for use in other contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

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Analysis and PDE Seminar Calendar for Past Semesters