Analysis Seminar

---

An energy model for harmonic graphs with junctions

Speaker: Ovidiu Savin, Colombia University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Thursday, February 16, 2023, 11 a.m.

Synopsis:

We consider an energy model for N ordered elastic membranes subject to forcing and boundary conditions. The heights of the membranes are described by real functions u_1, u_2,...,u_N, which minimize an energy functional involving the Dirichlet integral and a potential term depending on the cardinality of the set {u_1,..,u_N}. The potential term corresponds to the physical situation when consecutive membranes are glued to each other on their coincidence set.

The problem can be understood as a system of N-1 coupled one-phase free boundary problems with interacting free boundaries.

I will review the known results in the scalar case, and discuss the free boundary regularity when dealing with 3 or more membranes (joint with D. De Silva.)