L4

When the linear system in Newton’s method is approximately solved using an iterative method we have an inexact or truncated Newton method. The outer method is Newton’s method and the inner iterations will be the iterative method. The Inexact Newton framework is now close to 30 years old and is widely used and given names like Newton-Arnoldi, Newton-CG depending on the inner iterative method. In this talk we will explore convergence properties when the outer iterative method is Gauss-Newton, the Halley method or an interior point method for linear programming problems.

Einstein metrics are fixed points (up to scaling) of Hamilton's Ricci flow. A natural question to ask is whether a given metric is stable in the sense that the flow returns to the Einstein metric under a small perturbation. I'll give a brief survey of this area focussing on the case when the Einstein constant is positive. An interesting class of metrics where this question is not completely resolved are the compact symmetric spaces. I'll report on some recent progress with Tommy Murphy and James Waldron where we have been able to use a criterion due to Kroencke to show the Kaehler-Einstein metric on some Grassmannians and the bi-invariant metric on the Lie group G_2 are unstable.

Driven by its numerous applications in computational science, the approximation of smooth, high-dimensional functions via sparse polynomial expansions has received significant attention in the last five to ten years.  In the first part of this talk, I will give a brief survey of recent progress in this area.  In particular, I will demonstrate how the proper use of compressed sensing tools leads to new techniques for high-dimensional approximation which can mitigate the curse of dimensionality to a substantial extent.  The rest of the talk is devoted to approximating functions defined on irregular domains.  The vast majority of works on high-dimensional approximation assume the function in question is defined over a tensor-product domain.  Yet this assumption is often unrealistic.  I will introduce a method, known as polynomial frame approximation, suitable for broad classes of irregular domains and present theoretical guarantees for its approximation error, stability, and sample complexity.  These results show the suitability of this approach for high-dimensional approximation through the independence (or weak dependence) of the various guarantees on the ambient dimension d.  Time permitting, I will also discuss several extensions.

This work is devoted to the study of the following boundary value problem for compressible Navier-Stokes equations\begin{align*}&\begin{aligned}[b] \partial_t(\varrho \mathbf{u})+\text{div}(\varrho \mathbf u\otimes\mathbf u) &+\nabla p(\rho)\\&= \text{div} \mathbb S(\mathbf u)+\varrho\, \mathbf f\quad\text{ in }\Omega\times (0,T),\end{aligned} \\[6pt]&\partial_t\varrho+\text{div}(\varrho \mathbf u)=0\quad\text{ in }\Omega\times (0,T), \\[6pt]&\begin{aligned}[c] &\mathbf u=0\quad\text{ on }\partial \Omega\times( 0,T), \\ &\mathbf u(x,0)=\mathbf u_0(x)\quad\text{ in } \Omega,\\&\varrho(x,0)= \varrho_0(x) \quad\text{ in } \Omega, \end{aligned}\end{align*} where $\Omega$ is a bounded domain in $\mathbb R^d$, $d=2,3$, $\varrho_0>0$, $\mathbf u_0$, $\mathbf f$ are given functions, $p(\varrho)=\varrho^\gamma$, $\mathbb S(\mathbf u)=\mu(\nabla\mathbf{u}+\nabla\mathbf{u}^\top)+\lambda \text{div } \mathbf{u}$, $\mu, \lambda$ are positive constants. We consider the endpoint cases $\gamma=3/2$, $d=3$ and $\gamma=1$, $d=2$, when the energy estimate does not guarantee the integrability of the kinetic energy density with an exponent greater than 1, which leads to the so-called concentration problem. In order to cope with this difficulty we develop new approach to the problem. Our method is based on the estimates of the Newton potential of $p(\varrho)$. We prove that the kinetic energy density in 3-dimensional problem with $\gamma=3/2$ is bounded in $L\log L^\alpha$ Orlitz space and obtain new estimates for the pressure function. In the case $d=2$ and $\gamma=1$ we prove the existence of the weak solution to the problem. We also discuss the structure of concentrations for rotationally-symmetric and stationary solutions.

Let $\Omega\subseteq\mathbb{R}^2$ be a domain and let $f\in W^{1,1}(\Omega,\mathbb{R}^2)$ be a homeomorphism (between $\Omega$ and $f(\Omega)$). Then there exists a sequence of smooth diffeomorphisms $f_k$ converging to $f$ in $W^{1,1}(\Omega,\mathbb{R}^2)$ and uniformly. This is a joint result with A. Pratelli.
 

The hypoelliptic Laplacian is a family of operators indexed by $b \in \mathbf{R}^*_+$, acting on the total space of the tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold, that interpolates between the ordinary Laplacian as $b \to 0$ and the generator of the geodesic flow as $b \to +\infty$. These operators are not elliptic, they are not self-adjoint, they are hypoelliptic. One can think of the total space of the tangent bundle as the phase space of classical mechanics; so that the hypoelliptic Laplacian produces an interpolation between the geodesic flow and its quantisation. There is a dynamical counterpart, which is a natural interpolation between classical Brownian motion and the geodesic flow.

The hypoelliptic deformation preserves subtle invariants of the Laplacian. In the case of locally symmetric spaces (which are defined via Lie groups), the deformation is essentially isospectral, and leads to geometric formulas for orbital integrals, a key ingredient in Selberg's trace formula.

In a first part of the talk, I will describe the geometric construction of the hypoelliptic Laplacian in the context of de Rham theory. In a second part, I will explain applications to the trace formula.

Ginzburg–Landau type functionals provide a relaxation scheme to construct harmonic maps in the presence of topological obstructions. They arise in superconductivity models, in liquid crystal models (Landau–de Gennes functional) and in the generation of cross-fields in meshing. For a general compact manifold target space we describe the asymptotic number, type and location of singularities that arise in minimizers. We cover in particular the case where the fundamental group of the vacuum manifold in nonabelian and hence the singularities cannot be characterized univocally as elements of the fundamental group. The results unify the existing theory and cover new situations and problems.

This is a joint work with Antonin Monteil and Rémy Rodiac (UCLouvain, Louvain- la-Neuve, Belgium)

We study solutions to stationary Navier-Stokes system in two dimensional exterior domains, namely, existence of these solutions and their asymptotical behavior. The talk is based on the recent joint papers with K. Pileckas and R. Russo where the uniform boundedness and uniform convergence at infinity for arbitrary solution with finite Dirichlet integral were established. Here  no restrictions on smallness of fluxes are assumed, etc.  In the proofs we develop the ideas of the classical papers of Gilbarg & H.F. Weinberger (Ann. Scuola Norm.Pisa 1978) and Amick (Acta Math. 1988).

Small block overlapping, and non-overlapping, Schwarz methods are theoretically highly attractive as multilevel smoothers for a wide variety of problems that are not amenable to point relaxation methods.  Examples include monolithic Vanka smoothers for Stokes, overlapping vertex-patch decompositions for $H(\text{div})$ and  $H(\text{curl})$ problems, along with nearly incompressible elasticity, and augmented Lagrangian schemes.

 While it is possible to manually program these different schemes,  their use in general purpose libraries has been held back by a lack   of generic, composable interfaces. We present a new approach to the   specification and development such additive Schwarz methods in PETSc  that cleanly separates the topological space decomposition from the  discretisation and assembly of the equations. Our preconditioner is  flexible enough to support overlapping and non-overlapping additive  Schwarz methods, and can be used to formulate line, and plane smoothers, Vanka iterations, amongst others. I will illustrate these new features with some examples utilising the Firedrake finite element library, in particular how the design of an approriate computational interface enables these schemes to be used as building blocks inside block preconditioners.

This is joint work with Patrick Farrell and Florian Wechsung (Oxford), and Matt Knepley (Buffalo).

We discuss the key role that bespoke linear algebra plays in modelling PDEs with random coefficients using stochastic Galerkin approximation methods. As a specific example, we consider nearly incompressible linear elasticity problems with an uncertain spatially varying Young's modulus. The uncertainty is modelled with a finite set of parameters with prescribed probability distribution.  We introduce a novel three-field mixed variational formulation of the PDE model and and  assess the stability with respect to a weighted norm. The main focus will be  the efficient solution of the associated high-dimensional indefinite linear system of equations. Eigenvalue bounds for the preconditioned system can be  established and shown to be independent of the discretisation parameters and the Poisson ratio.  We also  discuss an associated a posteriori error estimation strategy and assess proxies for the error reduction associated with selected enrichments of the approximation spaces.  We will show by example that these proxies enable the design of efficient  adaptive solution algorithms that terminate when the estimated error falls below a user-prescribed tolerance.

This is joint work with Arbaz Khan and Catherine Powell