Let $\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^{n+1}$, $n\ge 2$, be a $1$-sided nontangentially accessible domain, that is, a set which is quantitatively open and path-connected. Assume also that $\Omega $ satisfies the capacity density condition. Let $L_0 u=-\mathop {\operatorname {div}}\nolimits (A_0 \nabla u)$, $Lu=-\mathop {\operatorname {div}}\nolimits (A\nabla u)$ be two real (not necessarily symmetric) uniformly elliptic operators in $\Omega $, and write $\omega _{L_0}, \omega _L$ for the respective associated elliptic measures. We establish the equivalence between the following properties: (i) $\omega _L \in A_{\infty }(\omega _{L_0})$, (ii) L is $L^p(\omega _{L_0})$-solvable for some $p\in (1,\infty )$, (iii) bounded null solutions of L satisfy Carleson measure estimates with respect to $\omega _{L_0}$, (iv) $\mathcal {S}<\mathcal {N}$ (i.e., the conical square function is controlled by the nontangential maximal function) in $L^q(\omega _{L_0})$ for some (or for all) $q\in (0,\infty )$ for any null solution of L, and (v) L is $\mathrm {BMO}(\omega _{L_0})$-solvable. Moreover, in each of the properties (ii)-(v) it is enough to consider the class of solutions given by characteristic functions of Borel sets (i.e, $u(X)=\omega _L^X(S)$ for an arbitrary Borel set $S\subset \partial \Omega $).

Also, we obtain a qualitative analog of the previous equivalences. Namely, we characterize the absolute continuity of $\omega _{L_0}$ with respect to $\omega _L$ in terms of some qualitative local $L^2(\omega _{L_0})$ estimates for the truncated conical square function for any bounded null solution of L. This is also equivalent to the finiteness $\omega _{L_0}$-almost everywhere of the truncated conical square function for any bounded null solution of L. As applications, we show that $\omega _{L_0}$ is absolutely continuous with respect to $\omega _L$ if the disagreement of the coefficients satisfies some qualitative quadratic estimate in truncated cones for $\omega _{L_0}$-almost everywhere vertex. Finally, when $L_0$ is either the transpose of L or its symmetric part, we obtain the corresponding absolute continuity upon assuming that the antisymmetric part of the coefficients has some controlled oscillation in truncated cones for $\omega _{L_0}$-almost every vertex.

We construct new optimal $L^{p}$ Hardy-type inequalities for elliptic Schrödinger-type operators with a potential term.

A hybrid asymptotic-numerical method is developed to approximate the mean first passage time (MFPT) and the splitting probability for a Brownian particle in a bounded two-dimensional (2D) domain that contains absorbing disks, referred to as “traps”, of asymptotically small radii. In contrast to previous studies that required traps to be spatially well separated, we show how to readily incorporate the effect of a cluster of closely spaced traps by adapting a recently formulated least-squares approach in order to numerically solve certain local problems for the Laplacian near the cluster. We also provide new asymptotic formulae for the MFPT in 2D spatially periodic domains where a trap cluster is centred at the lattice points of an oblique Bravais lattice. Over all such lattices with fixed area for the primitive cell, and for each specific trap set, the average MFPT is smallest for a hexagonal lattice of traps.

We consider a second-order elliptic operator L in skew product of an ordinary differential operator L1 on an interval (a, b) and an elliptic operator on a domain D2 of a Riemannian manifold such that the associated heat kernel is intrinsically ultracontractive. We give criteria for criticality and subcriticality of L in terms of a positive solution having minimal growth at η (η = a, b) to an associated ordinary differential equation. In the subcritical case, we explicitly determine the Martin compactification and Martin kernel for L on the basis of [24]; in particular, the Martin boundary over η is either one point or a compactification of D2, which depends on whether an associated integral near η diverges or converges. From this structure theorem we show a monotonicity property that the Martin boundary over η does not become smaller as the potential term of L1 becomes larger near η.

We present a simple, accurate method for computing singular or nearly singular integrals on a smooth, closed surface, such as layer potentials for harmonic functions evaluated at points on or near the surface. The integral is computed with a regularized kernel and corrections are added for regularization and discretization, which are found from analysis near the singular point. The surface integrals are computed from a new quadrature rule using surface points which project onto grid points in coordinate planes. The method does not require coordinate charts on the surface or special treatment of the singularity other than the corrections. The accuracy is about O(h 3), where h is the spacing in the background grid, uniformly with respect to the point of evaluation, on or near the surface. Improved accuracy is obtained for points on the surface. The treecode of Duan and Krasny for Ewald summation is used to perform sums. Numerical examples are presented with a variety of surfaces.

The aim of the paper is to establish estimates in weighted Sobolev spaces for the solutions of the Dirichlet problems on snowflake domains, as well as uniform estimates for the solutions of the Dirichlet problems on pre-fractal approximating domains.

We prove that, in a setting of local Dirichlet forms on metric measure spaces, a two-sided sub-Gaussian estimate of the heat kernel is equivalent to the conjunction of the volume doubling property, the elliptic Harnack inequality, and a certain estimate of the capacity between concentric balls. The main technical tool is the equivalence between the capacity estimate and the estimate of a mean exit time in a ball that uses two-sided estimates of a Green function in a ball.

We study the biharmonic equation Δ2u = u−α, 0 < α < 1, in a smooth and bounded domain Ω ⊂ ℝn, n ≥ 2, subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions. Under some suitable assumptions on Ω related to the positivity of the Green function for the biharmonic operator, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a solution.