Related papers: On variational problems related to steepest descen…

Let S be a complete surface of constant curvature K = + 1 or -1, i.e. the sphere S^2 or the Lobachevskij plane L^2, and D a bounded convex subset of S. If S = S^2, assume also diameter (D) < pi/2. It is proved that the length of any…

We get a new multiplicity result for gradient systems. Here is a very particular corollary: Let $\Omega\subset {\bf R}^n$ ($n\geq 2$) be a smooth bounded domain and let $\Phi:{\bf R}^2\to {\bf R}$ be a $C^1$ function, with $\Phi(0,0)=0$,…

For a given domain $\Omega \subset \Bbb{R}^n$, we consider the variational problem of minimizing the $L^1$-norm of the gradient on $\Omega$ of a function $u$ with prescribed continuous boundary values and satisfying a continuous lower…

Here is one of the results obtained in this paper: Let $X, Y$ be two convex sets each in a real vector space, let $J:X\times Y\to {\bf R}$ be convex and without global minima in $X$ and concave in $Y$, and let $\Phi:X\to {\bf R}$ be…

Given a Riemannian metric on the 2-sphere, sweep the 2-sphere out by a continuous one-parameter family of closed curves starting and ending at point curves. Pull the sweepout tight by, in a continuous way, pulling each curve as tight as…

Many tasks in image processing can be tackled by modeling an appropriate data fidelity term $\Phi: \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R} \cup \{+\infty\}$ and then solve one of the regularized minimization problems \begin{align*}…

We present two novel methods for approximating minimizers of the abstract Rayleigh quotient $\Phi(u)/ \|u\|^p$. Here $\Phi$ is a strictly convex functional on a Banach space with norm $\|\cdot\|$, and $\Phi$ is assumed to be positively…

Let $M$ be a complete Riemannian $3$-manifold with sectional curvatures between $0$ and $1$. A minimal $2$-sphere immersed in $M$ has area at least $4\pi$. If an embedded minimal sphere has area $4\pi$, then $M$ is isometric to the unit…

A connected, linearly ordered path $\ga \subset R^n$ satisfying $$ x_1\prec x_2\prec x_3 \in \ga, and x_1 \prec x_2 \prec x_3 \Rightarrow |x_2 - x_1| \leq | x_3 - x_1|$$ is shown to be a rectifiable curve; a priori bounds for its length are…

P\'al's isominwidth theorem states that for a fixed minimal width, the regular triangle has minimal area. A spherical version of this theorem was proven by Bezdek and Blekherman, if the minimal width is at most $\tfrac \pi 2$. If the width…

We prove an existence theorem for the sliding boundary variant of the Plateau problem for $2$-dimensional sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The simplest case of sufficient condition is when $n=3$ and the boundary $\Gamma$ is a finite disjoint union…

Steepest descent is central in variational mathematics. We present a new transparent existence proof for curves of near-maximal slope --- an influential notion of steepest descent in a nonsmooth setting. We moreover show that for…

Two dimensional steepest descent curves (SDC) for a quasi convex family are considered; the problem of their extensions (with constraints) outside of a convex body $K$ is studied. It is shown that possible extensions are constrained to lie…

A subset $S$ of the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$ is called orthogonal-pair-free if and only if there do not exist two distinct points $u, v \in S$ at distance $\frac{\pi}{2}$ from each other. Witsenhausen \cite{witsenhausen} asked the…

We study convexity properties of distance functions in Finsler unitary groups, where the Finsler structure is defined by translation of the $p$-Schatten norm on the Lie algebra. As a result we prove the existence of circumcenters for sets…

We consider the sub-Riemannian $3$-sphere $(\mathbb{S}^3,g_h)$ obtained by restriction of the Riemannian metric of constant curvature $1$ to the planar distribution orthogonal to the vertical Hopf vector field. It is known that…

We prove that the least area of the non-contractible immersed spheres is no more than $4\pi$ in any oriented compact manifold with dimension $n+2\leq 7$ which satisfies $R\geq 2$ and admits a map to $\mathbf S^2\times T^n$ with nonzero…

Solving the Plateau problem means to find the surface with minimal area among all surfaces with a given boundary. Part of the problem actually consists of giving a suitable definition to the notions of 'surface', 'area' and 'boundary'. In…

We study the asymptotic Dirichlet and Plateau problems on Cartan-Hadamard manifolds satisfying the so-called Strict Convexity (abbr. SC) condition. The main part of the paper consists in studying the SC condition on a manifold whose…

We study existence, structure, uniqueness and regularity of solutions of the obstacle problem \begin{equation*} \inf_{u\in BV_f(\Omega)}\int_{\mathbb{R}^n}\phi(x,Du), \end{equation*} where $BV_f(\Omega)=\{u\in BV(\Omega): u\geq \psi \text{…