Beijing-Saint Petersburg Mathematics Colloquium (online)
Abstract
The Hopf lemma, known also as the“boundary point principle”, is one of the important tools in qualitative analysis of partial differential equations. This lemma states that a supersolution of a partial differential equation with a minimum value at a boundary point, must increase linearly away from its boundary minimum provided the boundary is smooth enougn. For general operators of non-divergence type with bounded measurable coefficients this result was established in elliptic case independently by E. Hopf and O. Oleinik (1952) and in parabolic case by L. Nirenberg (1953). The first result for elliptic equations with divergence structure was proved by R. Finn and D. Gilbarg (1957). Later the efforts of many mathematicians were aimed at the extension of the classes of admissible opeartors and at the reduction of the boundary smoothness. We present several versions of the Hopf lemma for general elliptic and parabolic equations in divergence and non-divergence forms under the sharp requirements on the coefficients of equations and on the boundary of a domain. Also we provide a new sharp counterexample. The talk is based on results obtained in collaboration with Alexander Nazarov.
Bio
Graduated from Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad State University (LGU) in 1990 (department of mathematical physics). Ph. D. thesis (advisor prof. N. N. Uraltseva) was defended in St. Petersburg State University in 1993. Research interests: Differential equations, dynamical systems, and optimal control.
Website: http://www.math.uni-sb.de/~ag-fuchs/ag-fuchs.html
