Coarse-grained ellipticity and De Giorgi-Nash-Moser theory

We prove local boundedness and a Harnack inequality for nonnegative weak solutions of the equation $-\nabla\cdot(\mathbf{a}(x)\nabla u)=0$ under a coarse-grained ellipticity assumption on the symmetric coefficient field $\mathbf{a}$. Coarse-grained ellipticity is a scale-dependent condition, defined for fields with only $\mathbf{a},\mathbf{a}^{-1}\in L^1$, in terms of families of effective diffusion matrices on triadic cubes of all sizes, and our estimates depend quantitatively on a corresponding coarse-grained ellipticity ratio. We show that coarse-grained ellipticity can be enforced by purely negative Sobolev regularity hypotheses: if $\mathbf{a}\in L^1\cap W^{-s,p}(U)$ and $\mathbf{a}^{-1}\in L^1\cap W^{-t,q}(U)$ for exponents $p,q\in[1,\infty]$ and $s,t\in[0,1)$ satisfying $s