The aim of the book is to study some aspects of geometric evolutions, such as mean curvature flow and anisotropic mean curvature flow of hypersurfaces. We analyze the origin of such flows and their geometric and variational nature. Some of the most important aspects of mean curvature flow are described, such as the comparison principle and its use in the definition of suitable weak solutions. The anisotropic evolutions, which can be considered as a generalization of mean curvature flow, are studied from the view point of Finsler geometry. Concerning singular perturbations, we discuss the convergence of the Allen–Cahn (or Ginsburg–Landau) type equations to (possibly anisotropic) mean curvature flow before the onset of singularities in the limit problem. We study such kinds of asymptotic problems also in the static case, showing convergence to prescribed curvature-type problems.

This book explains the notion of Brakke’s mean curvature flow and its existence and regularity theories without assuming familiarity with geometric measure theory. The focus of study is a time-parameterized family of k-dimensional surfaces in the n-dimensional Euclidean space (1 ≤ k in

This Festschrift contains five research surveys and thirty-four shorter contributions by participants of the conference ''Stochastic Partial Differential Equations and Related Fields'' hosted by the Faculty of Mathematics at Bielefeld University, October 10–14, 2016. The conference, attended by more than 140 participants, including PostDocs and PhD students, was held both to honor Michael Röckner's contributions to the field on the occasion of his 60th birthday and to bring together leading scientists and young researchers to present the current state of the art and promising future developments. Each article introduces a well-described field related to Stochastic Partial Differential Equations and Stochastic Analysis in general. In particular, the longer surveys focus on Dirichlet forms and Potential theory, the analysis of Kolmogorov operators, Fokker–Planck equations in Hilbert spaces, the theory of variational solutions to stochastic partial differential equations, singular stochastic partial differential equations and their applications in mathematical physics, as well as on the theory of regularity structures and paracontrolled distributions. The numerous research surveys make the volume especially useful for graduate students and researchers who wish to start work in the above-mentioned areas, or who want to be informed about the current state of the art.

Interfaces are created to separate two distinct phases in a situation in which phase coexistence occurs. This book discusses randomly fluctuating interfaces in several different settings and from several points of view: discrete/continuum, microscopic/macroscopic, and static/dynamic theories. The following four topics in particular are dealt with in the book.Assuming that the interface is represented as a height function measured from a fixed-reference discretized hyperplane, the system is governed by the Hamiltonian of gradient of the height functions. This is a kind of effective interface model called ∇φ-interface model. The scaling limits are studied for Gaussian (or non-Gaussian) random fields with a pinning effect under a situation in which the rate functional of the corresponding large deviation principle has non-unique minimizers.Young diagrams determine decreasing interfaces, and their dynamics are introduced. The large-scale behavior of such dynamics is studied from the points of view of the hydrodynamic limit and non-equilibrium fluctuation theory. Vershik curves are derived in that limit.A sharp interface limit for the Allen–Cahn equation, that is, a reaction–diffusion equation with bistable reaction term, leads to a mean curvature flow for the interfaces. Its stochastic perturbation, sometimes called a time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau model, stochastic quantization, or dynamic P(φ)-model, is considered. Brief introductions to Brownian motions, martingales, and stochastic integrals are given in an infinite dimensional setting. The regularity property of solutions of stochastic PDEs (SPDEs) of a parabolic type with additive noises is also discussed.The Kardar–Parisi–Zhang (KPZ) equation , which describes a growing interface with fluctuation, recently has attracted much attention. This is an ill-posed SPDE and requires a renormalization. Especially its invariant measures are studied.

The book originates from the Elliptic PDE course given by the first author at the Scuola Normale Superiore in recent years. It covers the most classical aspects of the theory of Elliptic Partial Differential Equations and Calculus of Variations, including also more recent developments on partial regularity for systems and the theory of viscosity solutions.

This volume covers some of the most seminal research in the areas of mathematical analysis and numerical computation for nonlinear phenomena. Collected from the international conference held in honor of Professor Yoshikazu Giga’s 60th birthday, the featured research papers and survey articles discuss partial differential equations related to fluid mechanics, electromagnetism, surface diffusion, and evolving interfaces. Specific focus is placed on topics such as the solvability of the Navier-Stokes equations and the regularity, stability, and symmetry of their solutions, analysis of a living fluid, stochastic effects and numerics for Maxwell’s equations, nonlinear heat equations in critical spaces, viscosity solutions describing various kinds of interfaces, numerics for evolving interfaces, and a hyperbolic obstacle problem. Also included in this volume are an introduction of Yoshikazu Giga’s extensive academic career and a long list of his published work. Students and researchers in mathematical analysis and computation will find interest in this volume on theoretical study for nonlinear phenomena.

The book deals with the (elementary and introductory) theory of valuation rings. As explained in the introduction, this represents a useful and important viewpoint in algebraic geometry, especially concerning the theory of algebraic curves and their function fields. The correspondences of this with other viewpoints (e.g. of geometrical or topological nature) are often indicated, also to provide motivations and intuition for many results. Links with arithmetic are also often indicated. There are three appendices, concerning Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz (for which several proofs are provided), Puiseux series and Dedekind domains. There are also several exercises, often accompanied by hints, which sometimes develop further results not included in full for brevity reasons.

The book provides a non-perturbative approach to the symmetry breaking in the standard model, in this way avoiding the critical issues which affect the standard presentations. The debated empirical meaning of global and local gauge symmetries is clarified. The absence of Goldstone bosons in the Higgs mechanism is non-perturbatively explained by the validity of Gauss laws obeyed by the currents which generate the relatedglobal gauge symmetry. The solution of the U(1) problem and the vacuum structure in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) are obtained without recourse to the problematic semiclassical instanton approximation, by rather exploiting the topology of the gauge group.

This volume presents an introductory course on differential stochastic equations and Malliavin calculus. The material of the book has grown out of a series of courses delivered at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (and also at the Trento and Funchal Universities) and has been refined over several years of teaching experience in the subject. The lectures are addressed to a reader who is familiar with basic notions of measure theory and functional analysis. The first part is devoted to the Gaussian measure in a separable Hilbert space, the Malliavin derivative, the construction of the Brownian motion and Itô's formula. The second part deals with differential stochastic equations and their connection with parabolic problems. The third part provides an introduction to the Malliavin calculus. Several applications are given, notably the Feynman-Kac, Girsanov and Clark-Ocone formulae, the Krylov-Bogoliubov and Von Neumann theorems. In this third edition several small improvements are added and a new section devoted to the differentiability of the Feynman-Kac semigroup is introduced. A considerable number of corrections and improvements have been made.

This monograph offers the first systematic treatment of the theory of minimal surfaces in Euclidean spaces by complex analytic methods, many of which have been developed in recent decades as part of the theory of Oka manifolds (the h-principle in complex analysis). It places particular emphasis on the study of the global theory of minimal surfaces with a given complex structure. Advanced methods of holomorphic approximation, interpolation, and homotopy classification of manifold-valued maps, along with elements of convex integration theory, are implemented for the first time in the theory of minimal surfaces. The text also presents newly developed methods for constructing minimal surfaces in minimally convex domains of Rn, based on the Riemann–Hilbert boundary value problem adapted to minimal surfaces and holomorphic null curves. These methods also provide major advances in the classical Calabi–Yau problem, yielding in particular minimal surfaces with the conformal structure of any given bordered Riemann surface. Offering new directions in the field and several challenging open problems, the primary audience of the book are researchers (including postdocs and PhD students) in differential geometry and complex analysis. Although not primarily intended as a textbook, two introductory chapters surveying background material and the classical theory of minimal surfaces also make it suitable for preparing Masters or PhD level courses.