We prove a reverse Faber–Krahn inequality for the Cheeger constant, stating that every convex body in ℝ2 has an affine image such that the product between its Cheeger constant and the square root of its area is not larger than the same quantity for the regular triangle. An analogous result holds for centrally symmetric convex bodies with the regular triangle replaced by the square. We also prove a Mahler-type inequality for the Cheeger constant, stating that every axisymmetric convex body in ℝ2 has a linear image such that the product between its Cheeger constant and the Cheeger constant of its polar body is not larger than the same quantity for the square.

The paper studies large time behaviour of solutions to the Keller–Segel system with quadratic degradation in a liquid environment, as given by

under Neumann boundary conditions in a bounded domain Ω ⊂ ℝn, where n ≥ 1 is arbitrary. It is shown that whenever U : Ω × (0,∞) → ℝn is a bounded and sufficiently regular solenoidal vector field any non-trivial global bounded solution of (⋆) approaches the trivial equilibrium at a rate that, with respect to the norm in either of the spaces L1(Ω) and L∞(Ω), can be controlled from above and below by appropriate multiples of 1/(t + 1). This underlines that, even up to this quantitative level of accuracy, the large time behaviour in (⋆) is essentially independent not only of the particular fluid flow, but also of any effect originating from chemotactic cross-diffusion. The latter is in contrast to the corresponding Cauchy problem, for which known results show that in the n = 2 case the presence of chemotaxis can significantly enhance biomixing by reducing the respective spatial L1 norms of solutions.

In this paper the existence and uniqueness of weak and strong solutions for a non-autonomous non-local reaction–diffusion equation is proved. Furthermore, the existence of minimal pullback attractors in the L2-norm in the frameworks of universes of fixed bounded sets and those given by a tempered growth condition is established, along with some relationships between them. Finally, we prove the existence of minimal pullback attractors in the H1-norm and study relationships among these new families and those given previously in the L2 context. We also present new results in the autonomous framework that ensure the existence of global compact attractors as a particular case.

We prove the uniqueness of a solution for a problem whose simplest model is

with k ≥ 1, 0 f ∈ L∞(Ω) and Ω is a bounded domain of ℝN, N ≥ 2. So far, uniqueness results are known for k < 1, while existence holds for any k ≥ 1 and f positive in open sets compactly embedded in a neighbourhood of the boundary. We extend the uniqueness results to the k ≥ 1 case and show, with an example, that existence does not hold if f is zero near the boundary. We even deal with the uniqueness result when f is replaced by a nonlinear term λuq with 0 < q < 1 and λ > 0.

In this paper we study the affine focal set, which is the bifurcation set of the affine distance to submanifolds Nn contained in hypersurfaces Mn+1 of the (n + 2)-space. We give conditions under which this affine focal set is a regular hypersurface and, for curves in 3-space, we describe its stable singularities. For a given Darboux vector field ξ of the immersion N ⊂ M, one can define the affine metric g and the affine normal plane bundle . We prove that the g-Laplacian of the position vector belongs to if and only if ξ is parallel. For umbilic and normally flat immersions, the affine focal set reduces to a single line. Submanifolds contained in hyperplanes or hyperquadrics are always normally flat. For N contained in a hyperplane L, we show that N ⊂ M is umbilic if and only if N ⊂ L is an affine sphere and the envelope of tangent spaces is a cone. For M hyperquadric, we prove that N ⊂ M is umbilic if and only if N is contained in a hyperplane. The main result of the paper is a general description of the umbilic and normally flat immersions: given a hypersurface f and a point O in the (n + 1)-space, the immersion (ν, ν · (f − O)), where ν is the co-normal of f, is umbilic and normally flat, and conversely, any umbilic and normally flat immersion is of this type.

Some congruences on conjectures of van Hamme are established. These results give partial answers to some of Swisher's conjectures.

Recently, Sychev showed that conditions both necessary and sufficient for lower semicontinuity of integral functionals with p-coercive extended-valued integrands are the W1,p-quasi-convexity and the validity of a so-called matching condition (M). Condition (M) is so general that we conjecture whether it always holds in the case of continuous integrands. In this paper we develop the relaxation theory under the validity of condition (M). It turns out that a better relaxation theory is available in this case. This motivates our research since it is an important old open problem to develop the relaxation theory in the case of extended-value integrands. Then we discuss applications of the general relaxation theory to some concrete cases, in particular to the theory of strong materials.

We define and study twisted Alexander-type invariants of complex hypersurface complements. We investigate torsion properties for the twisted Alexander modules and extend the local-to-global divisibility results of Maxim and of Dimca and Libgober to the twisted setting. In the process, we also study the splitting fields containing the roots of the corresponding twisted Alexander polynomials.

We consider weak solutions to

with p > 1, q ≥ max{p − 1, 1}. We exploit the Moser iteration technique to prove a Harnack comparison inequality for C1 weak solutions. As a consequence we deduce a strong comparison principle.

We consider bifurcation of solutions from a given trivial branch for a class of strongly indefinite elliptic systems via the spectral flow. Our main results establish bifurcation invariants that can be obtained from the coefficients of the systems without using explicit solutions of their linearizations at the given branch. Our constructions are based on a comparison principle for the spectral flow and a generalization of a bifurcation theorem due to Szulkin.