Introduction to PDE, AIMS (Senegal) March 14-April1, 20016
Introduction to Partial Differential Equations
Almut Burchard (University of Toronto)
Outline:
This is a basic introduction to partial differential equations as
they arise in physics, geometry and optimization. It is meant to
be accessible to beginners with little or no prior knowledge of
the topic, while offering students of all levels an opportunity
to enlarge their bag of tools and sharpen their problem-solving
skills. To give just a taste of the breadth of the field, we will
discuss a variety of ideas and techniques, for different types of equations.
Non-smooth solutions are a recurring theme: Why do we need them, what do they
mean for the underlying physical or geometric problem, what challenges do they
present, and what methods are available for studying them?
Sources: L. C. Evans Chapters 2 & 3, F. John, W. Strauss
Tentative schedule:
("*" denotes possible alternative topics)
Week 1 (March 14-18)
- M PDE as physical models. Well-posed problems
- T The transport equation: method of characteristics
- W Burger's equation: shocks and entropy solutions
- R Second-order linear equations in two variables:
non-characteristic data and characteristic curves
- F The wave equation in one space
dimension: energy, causality
- * The Cauchy-Riemann system
- * The Cauchy-Kovalevskaya existence theorem
Week 2 (March 21-25)
- M Poisson's equation: fundamental solution
- T Harmonic functions: mean value property,
maximum principle
- W Harnack's inequality and regularity. Green's functions
- R Variational methods: the Dirichlet problem
- * Min-max characterization of eigenvalues.
Weyl's law
- F The diffusion equation: fundamental solution,
maximum principle
- * Distributions and weak solutions. Sobolev spaces