Degenerate Linear Equations Research Articles

Uniform Estimates for Concave Homogeneous Complex Degenerate Elliptic Equations Comparable to the Monge-Ampère Equation

We prove sharp uniform estimates for strong supersolutions of a large class of fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic complex equations. Our findings rely on ideas of Kuo and Trudinger who dealt with degenerate linear equations in the real setting. We also exploit the pluripotential theory for the complex Monge-Ampère operator as well as suitably tailored theory of Lp-viscosity subsolutions.

Smoothness of the gradient of weak solutions of degenerate linear equations

Let Q(x) be a nonnegative definite, symmetric matrix such that \(\sqrt {Q\left( x \right)} \) is Lipschitz continuous. Given a real-valued function b(x) and a weak solution u(x) of div(Q∇u) = b, we find sufficient conditions in order that \(\sqrt Q \nabla u\) has some first order smoothness. Specifically, if Ω is a bounded open set in Rn, we study when the components of \(\sqrt Q \nabla u\) belong to the first order Sobolev space WQ1,2(Ω) defined by Sawyer and Wheeden. Alternately, we study when each of n first order Lipschitz vector field derivatives Xiu has some first order smoothness if u is a weak solution in Ω of Σi=1nXi′Xiu + b = 0. We do not assume that {Xi} is a Hormander collection of vector fields in Ω. The results signal ones for more general equations.