Skip to main content
Log in

Solutions of singular elliptic equations via the oblique derivative problem

  • Published:
ANNALI DELL'UNIVERSITA' DI FERRARA Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We study a class of second elliptic equations whose highest order coefficients vanish everywhere on the boundary. Under suitable conditions on the lower order coefficients, Langlais proved in 1985 that such equations have unique smooth solutions up to the boundary provided the data are smooth enough. Our goal here is to prove some Schauder estimates for these equations and to obtain results even in Lipschitz domains. In addition, we show that bounded solutions of such problems are as smooth as the data allow. A key step is to observe that smooth solutions must satisfy an oblique derivative boundary condition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bolley P., Camus J.: Sur une classe d’opérateurs elliptiques et dégénérés à une variable. J. Math. Pure Appl. 51, 429–463 (1972)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Bolley, P., Camus, J.: Sur une classe d’opérateurs elliptiques et dégénérés à plusieurs variables. Contributions à l’analyse fonctionnelle, Soc. Math. France, Paris, pp. 55–140. Bull. Soc. Math. France, Mém. No. 34 (1973)

  3. Bolley P., Camus J., Métivier G.: Estimations de Schauder et régularité höldérienne pour une classe de problèmes aux limites singuliers. Comm. Partial Differ. Equ. 11(11), 1135–1203 (1986)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Caffarelli L.A.: Interior estimates for fully nonlinear elliptic equations. Ann. Math. 130, 189–213 (1989)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Da Prato G., Lunardi A.: On a class of elliptic and parabolic equations in convex domains without boundary conditions. Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 22, 933–953 (2008)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Daskalopoulos P., Hamilton R.: Regularity of the free boundary for the porous medium equation. J. Am. Math. Soc. 11, 899–965 (1988)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Daskalopoulos P., Lee K.: Hölder regularity of solutions of degenerate elliptic and parabolic equations. J. Funct. Anal. 201, 341–379 (2003)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Fichera, G.: On a unified theory of boundary value problems for elliptic-parabolic equations of second order. In: Boundary Problems in Differential Equations, pp. 97–120. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison (1960)

  9. Gilbarg D., Hörmander L.: Intermediate Schauder estimates. Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 74, 297–318 (1980)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Gilbarg, D., Trudinger, N.S.: Elliptic Partial Differential Equations of Second Order. Springer-Verlag, Berlin (2001). Reprint of 1998 edition

  11. Goulaouic C., Shimakura N.: Regularité hölderienne de certains problèmes aux limites elliptiques dégénérés. Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa Cl. Sci. (4) 10, 79–108 (1983)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Horiuchi T.: On the Neumann problems for certain degenerate elliptic operators. Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. A Math. Sci. 69(9), 372–376 (1993)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Horiuchi T.: The Schauder approach to degenerate elliptic equations with homogeneous Neumann boundary condition. I . Bull. Fac. Sci. Ibaraki Univ. Ser. A 27, 7–32 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Horiuchi T.: The Schauder approach to degenerate elliptic equations with homogeneous Neumann boundary condition. II. Bull. Fac. Sci. Ibaraki Univ. Ser. A 28, 23–42 (1996)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Horiuchi T.: The Neumann boundary value problem for degenerate elliptic operators. Far East J. Math. Sci. 2(1), 7–26 (2000)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Horiuchi T.: The Neumann boundary value problem for degenerate elliptic operators. II. Schauder estimates. Far East J. Math. Sci. 2(2), 235–250 (2000)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Horiuchi T.: The Neumann boundary value problem for degenerate elliptic operators. III. General case. Far East J. Math. Sci. 2(3), 345–363 (2000)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Kichenassamy S.: Boundary blow-up and degenerate equations. J. Funct. Anal. 215, 271–289 (2004)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Kohn J.J., Nirenberg L.: Degenerate elliptic parabolic equations of second order. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 20, 797–872 (1967)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. Langlais M.: On the continuous solutions of a degenerate elliptic equation. Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 50, 282–298 (1985)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Lieberman G.M.: Regularized distance and its applications. Pac. J. Math. 117, 329–352 (1985)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. Lieberman G.M.: Mixed boundary value problems for elliptic and parabolic differential equations of second order. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 113, 422–440 (1986)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Lieberman G.M.: Oblique derivative problems in Lipschitz domains I. Continuous boundary data. Boll. Un. Mat. Ital. (7) 1B, 1185–1210 (1987)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Lieberman G.M.: The natural generalization of the natural conditions of Ladyzhenskaya and Ural’tseva for elliptic equations. Comm. Partial Differ. Equ. 16, 311–361 (1991)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Lieberman G.M.: The conormal derivative problem for equations of variational type in nonsmooth domains. Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 330, 41–67 (1992)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Lieberman G.M.: Second Order Parabolic Differential Equations. World Scientific, River Edge (1996)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  27. Lieberman, G.M.: The maximum principle for equations with composite coefficients. Electron. J. Differ. Equ. 38, 1–17

  28. Lieberman G.M.: Pointwise estimates for oblique derivative problems in nonsmooth domains. J. Differ. Equ. 173, 178–211 (2001)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Lieberman G.M.: Higher regularity for nonlinear oblique derivative problems in nonsmooth domains. Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup Pisa (5) 1, 178–211 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Lieberman G.M.: Elliptic equations with strongly singular lower order terms. Indiana Univ. Math. J. 57, 2097–2135 (2008)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  31. Miller K.: Extremal barriers on cones with Phragmén-Lindelöf theorems and other applications. Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. 90, 297–329 (1971)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  32. Wang C., Wang L., Yin J., Zhou S.: Hölder continuity of weak solutions of a class of linear equations with boundary degeneracy. J. Differ. Equ. 239, 99–131 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  33. Wang L.: A maximum principle for elliptic and parabolic equations with oblique derivative boundary problems. J. Partial Differ. Equ. 5(4), 23–27 (1992)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gary M. Lieberman.

Additional information

The author is grateful to East China Normal University, at which some of the research for this paper was carried out.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lieberman, G.M. Solutions of singular elliptic equations via the oblique derivative problem. Ann Univ Ferrara 57, 121–172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11565-010-0113-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11565-010-0113-1

Keywords

Mathematics Subject Classification (2000)

Navigation