L4

The dynamic flow of liquid crystals is described by the Ericksen-Leslie system. The Ericksen-Leslie system is a system of  the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the gradient flow for the Oseen-Frank model,   which generalizes the heat flow for harmonic maps  into the $2$-sphere.   In this talk, we will outline a proof of global existence of solutions of the Ericksen-Leslie system for a general Oseen-Frank  model in 2D.

We will focus on vortex gradient fields of unit-length. The associated stream function solves the eikonal equation, more precisely it is the distance function to a point. We will prove a kinetic formulation characterizing such vector fields in any dimension.
 

A theory of Sobolev inequalities in arbitrary open sets in $R^n$ is offered. Boundary regularity of domains is replaced with information on boundary traces of trial functions and of their derivatives up to some explicit minimal order. The relevant Sobolev inequalities involve constants independent of the geometry of the domain, and exhibit the same critical exponents as in the classical inequalities on regular domains. Our approach relies upon new representation formulas for Sobolev functions, and on ensuing pointwise estimates which hold in any open set. This is a joint work with V. Maz'ya.

I shall show that for every conjugacy class O in a connected semisimple algebraic group G over an algebraically closed field of characteristic good for G one can find a special transversal slice S to the set of conjugacy classes in G such that O intersects S and dim O=codim S. The construction of the slice utilizes some new combinatorics related to invariant planes for the action of Weyl group elements in the reflection representation. The condition dim O=codim S is checked using some new mysterious results by Lusztig on intersection of conjugacy classes in algebraic groups with Bruhat cells.

Let $G$ be a connected reductive group and $X$ a smooth complete curve, both defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Let $Bun_G$ denote the stack of $G$-bundles on $X$. In analogy with the classical theory of Whittaker coefficients for automorphic functions, we construct a “Fourier transform” functor, called $coeff_{G}$, from the DG category of D-modules on $Bun_G$ to a certain DG category $Wh(G, ext)$, called the extended Whittaker category. Combined with work in progress by other mathematicians and the speaker, this construction allows to formulate the compatibility of the Langlands duality functor  $$\mathbb{L}_G : \operatorname{IndCoh}_{N}(LocSys_{\check{G}} ) \to D(Bun_G)$$ with the Whittaker model. For $G = GL_n$ and $G = PGL_n$, we prove that $coeff_G$ is fully faithful. This result guarantees that, for those groups, $\mathbb{L}_G$ is unique (if it exists) and necessarily fully faithful.

In this talk, I will describe how to use the partial hodograph-Legendre transformation to show the analyticity of the free boundary in the elliptic thin obstacle problem. In particular, I will discuss the invertibility of this transformation and show that the resulting fully nonlinear PDE has a subelliptic structure. This is based on a joint work with Herbert Koch and Arshak Petrosyan.