Min–max formulas and other properties of certain classes of nonconvex effective Hamiltonians

Abstract

This paper is the first attempt to systematically study properties of the effective Hamiltonian $$\overline{H}$$ arising in the periodic homogenization of some coercive but nonconvex Hamilton–Jacobi equations. Firstly, we introduce a new and robust decomposition method to obtain min–max formulas for a class of nonconvex $$\overline{H}$$ . Secondly, we analytically and numerically investigate other related interesting phenomena, such as “quasi-convexification” and breakdown of symmetry, of $$\overline{H}$$ from other typical nonconvex Hamiltonians. Finally, in the appendix, we show that our new method and those a priori formulas from the periodic setting can be used to obtain stochastic homogenization for the same class of nonconvex Hamilton–Jacobi equations. Some conjectures and problems are also proposed.