English

On De Giorgi Conjecture in Dimension $N \geq 9$

Analysis of PDEs 2009-03-27 v2 Differential Geometry

Abstract

A celebrated conjecture due to De Giorgi states that any bounded solution of the equation Δu+(1u2)u=0inRN\Delta u + (1-u^2) u = 0 \hbox{in} \R^N with \ppyNu>0\pp_{y_N}u >0 must be such that its level sets {u=\la}\{u=\la\} are all hyperplanes, {\em \bf at least} for dimension N8N\le 8. A counterexample for N9N\ge 9 has long been believed to exist. Based on a minimal graph Γ\Gamma which is not a hyperplane, found by Bombieri, De Giorgi and Giusti in RN\R^N, N9N\ge 9, we prove that for any small α>0\alpha >0 there is a bounded solution uα(y)u_\alpha(y) with \ppyNuα>0\pp_{y_N}u_\alpha >0, which resembles tanh(t2) \tanh (\frac t{\sqrt{2}}) , where t=t(y)t=t(y) denotes a choice of signed distance to the blown-up minimal graph Γα:=α1Γ\Gamma_\alpha := \alpha^{-1}\Gamma. This solution constitutes a counterexample to De Giorgi conjecture for N9N\ge 9.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.3141,
  title  = {On De Giorgi Conjecture in Dimension $N \geq 9$},
  author = {Manuel del Pino and Mike Kowalczyk and Juncheng Wei},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.3141},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

67 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:52:21.875Z