An $\infty$-harmonic function is a viscosity solution of $\nabla^2 u(\nabla u,\nabla u)=0$, or equivalently, an absolute minimizer of $\|\nabla u\|_{L^\infty}$. We prove a variety of new structural and regularity results in two dimensions, including: 1. $\infty$-harmonic functions in domains of $\mathbb{R}^2$ are $C^{1,1/3}$. 2. Critical points are isolated, and at each critical point, the solution has a unique quasiradial blow-up. 3. Entire solutions with polynomial growth have unique quasiradial blow-downs, and are determined by their Fourier modes at infinity. These results are consequences of a new theory relating $\infty$-harmonic functions to inverse mean curvature flow (IMCF) clusters -- which are piecewise weak solutions of IMCF with common obstacle-type boundary conditions on the interfaces (a simple example is an embedded family of cuspidal curves evolving by inverse curvature). This connection arises as the $p\to\infty$ limit of the classical duality between $p$-harmonic and $q$-harmonic functions in $\mathbb{R}^2$, where $\frac1p+\frac1q=1$.
For every $n\geq 3$, we construct a nonconstant real-valued function $U\in C^\infty(\overline{\mathbb R^n_+})$, harmonic in the upper half-space, whose complete boundary jet vanishes on a compact nowhere dense subset of $\partial\mathbb R^n_+$ of positive $(n-1)$-dimensional measure. The essential construction takes place in two dimensions and yields the case $n=3$; higher-dimensional examples follow by cylindrical lifting. In every dimension, the exceptional set may occupy an arbitrarily large proportion of a fixed boundary cube. This resolves, in the negative, the smooth case of the boundary unique-continuation problem left open by Bourgain and Wolff in 1990 \cite[p.~260]{BourgainWolff1990}. In dimension three, a M\"obius--Kelvin transfer gives the corresponding counterexample in the unit ball. It disproves Nadirashvili's smooth unit-ball conjecture on boundary singular sets \cite[Conjecture~4, p.~232]{Nadirashvili1997} and, a fortiori, disproves the gradient-only formulation subsequently recorded by Logunov and Malinnikova \cite[Section~7.4]{LogunovMalinnikova2020} and by Lin \cite[Conjecture~3, pp.~15--16]{Lin2020Current}. The proof uncovers a hidden flexibility principle for nonlocal elliptic equations: microscopic modifications can exert macroscopic control over exterior data. A quantitative correction mechanism for the half-Laplacian, iterated across scales, produces flat nonlocal Cauchy data on a set of positive measure. Thus nonlocality has a striking dual character: the same long-range interaction that drives unique-continuation rigidity can also furnish the flexibility through which that rigidity fails in the smooth category.
We investigate the Dirichlet problem for the variational integral $J[u] = \int_{\Omega} f(\nabla u) \, dx$ with density $f$ of linear growth satisfying appropriate ellipticity conditions. We show that the relaxed problem admits a unique solution $u$ in the space of functions of bounded variation, if the set $\Gamma_0$ of convex points $x \in \partial\Omega$ is sufficiently large. For example, the inequality $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(\Gamma_0)>\frac{2}{3}\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(\partial\Omega)$ is sufficient. Moreover, the minimizer $u$ is smooth in the interior of $\Omega$ and attains the prescribed boundary data at least on $\Gamma_0$ in the classical sense.
Let $\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n$ be a bounded domain, and let $f$ be a nonnegative, nondecreasing function satisfying the Keller-Osserman condition. We study boundary blow-up solutions of $\Delta u=f(u)$ in $\Omega$. Although existence is classical, uniqueness under these assumptions is known in balls but remains open even for smooth convex domains. We identify the normalized gradient $Q_u=|\nabla u|^2/(2F(u))$, $F'=f$, as a quantity governing uniqueness. Under a structural condition on $f$, a boundary blow-up solution $u$ is unique if $\limsup_{x\to\partial\Omega}Q_u(x)\le 1$, without any regularity assumption on $\partial \Omega$. For $C^{1,1}$ domains, assuming a growth condition on $f$, we prove $Q_u(x)\to 1$ for every boundary blow-up solution and hence obtain uniqueness under the structural condition. For convex domains, we prove $Q_u\le 1$ for the minimal boundary blow-up solution and obtain uniqueness when $\sqrt F$ is eventually convex, without imposing any additional boundary regularity.
We consider the zero-homogeneous reduction of the two-dimensional Euler equation in the 3-fold symmetric case $m=3$, which is left unsolved in the $m\geq4$ relaxation theory of Said, Elgindi, and Murray \cite{EMS}. We prove that every nonconstant $W^{1,p}$ solution satisfies $\|g_\theta(t)\|_{L^p}\to\infty$ as $t\to\pm\infty$ for $1<p\leq\infty$. For $p=1$, the total variation is conserved, but the $L\log L$ modular tends to infinity whenever it is initially finite. If $D_\theta g_0$ is a summable sum of non-atomic one-sign components and atoms, every profile in the two omega-limit sets is a jump profile, and each half-orbit approaches its omega-limit set in $W^{\alpha,r}$ for $\alpha r<1$. The structural assumption on $D_\theta g_0$ is automatic for $C^1$ data. Moreover, every weak $L^2$ infinite-time limit generates a complete $L^2$-precompact orbit.
For every pair of integers $3\leq k<n$ with $k$ odd, we construct a compact embedded rotational torus in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ whose homothetic dilations satisfy the unnormalised $\sigma_k$-curvature flow in a Sobolev almost-everywhere sense. Its profile curve has H\"older regularity $C^{1,1/k}$ and Sobolev regularity $W^{2,p}$ for every $1\leq p<k/(k-1)$. Away from two singular latitudes the torus is smooth; globally, the flow equation is interpreted using the weak shape operator of the associated Lipschitz boundary. Under rotational symmetry, the self-similar equation $\langle X,\nu\rangle=-\sigma_k$, where $X$ is the position vector and $\nu$ is the unit normal, reduces to a degenerate profile system. We solve this system by combining an odd-power desingularisation, a shooting argument, uniform radial and axial bounds, and a strict gap between the shooting parameters and the cylindrical radius. No classical $C^2$ rotational torus can satisfy the soliton equation, so the loss of regularity is unavoidable within the rotational toroidal class.
We consider the Dirichlet problem for the mean curvature operator in Minkowski space, \[ -\operatorname{div}\left(\frac{\nabla u}{\sqrt{1-|\nabla u|^2}}\right) = \lambda u + \mu h(x,u) \quad \text{in } \Omega, \qquad u = 0 \quad \text{on } \partial\Omega, \] in a bounded domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N$, where $\lambda, \mu$ are real parameters, and the nonlinearity $h$ is superlinear at $u = 0$. In particular, we study the combined effect of the parameters $\lambda,\,\mu$ on the multiplicity of solutions. In the general setting, following Szulkin's approach for nonsmooth functionals, we prove the existence, for $\lambda$ not belonging to the spectrum of the Dirichlet Laplacian and $\mu$ sufficiently large, of a global minimizing solution (with negative action level) and of a min-max solution (with positive action level). Moreover, we characterize the limiting profiles of these solutions as $\mu \to +\infty$. More precisely, when the global minimizer is positive, its limit profile is $\mathrm{dist}(\cdot,\partial\Omega)$, thus saturating, in the limit, the geometric constraint $|\nabla u|\le1$, while min-max solutions collapse uniformly to zero as $\mu\to+\infty$. A nonexistence criterion is also given for suitable values of $\lambda$ and $\mu$. Finally, when the domain $\Omega$ is a ball, using a shooting approach, we establish the existence of arbitrarily many nodal radial solutions for every $\lambda \ge 0$ and for $\mu$ sufficiently large.
A. Boscaggin, F. Colasuonno, Ricardo Ziegele· 0 citations