The Correspondence Principle: A bridge between general potential theories and nonlinear elliptic differential operators

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Authors: Frank Reese Harvey, Kevin R.VE Payne
Cited by: 0

Abstract

General potential theories concern the study of functions which are subharmonic with respect to a suitable constraint set $\cF$ in the space of 2-jets. While interesting in their own right, general potential theories are being widely used to study fully nonlinear PDEs determined by degenerate elliptic operators $F$ acting on the space of 2-jets. We will discuss a powerful tool, the correspondence principle, which establishes the equivalence between $\cF$–subharmonics/superharmonics $u$ and admissible subsolutions/supersolutions $u$ (in the viscosity sense) of the PDE determined by every operator $F$ which is compatible with $\cF$. The crucial degenerate ellipticity often requires the operator to be restricted to a suitable constraint set $\cG$, which determines the admissibility. Applications to comparison principles by way of the duality-monotonicity-fiberegularity method will also be discussed.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations Geometric Analysis and Curvature Flows Optimization and Variational Analysis

Publication details

Journal / source
Bruno Pini mathematical analysis Seminar
Volume
16
Issue
1
Pages
41–67
Publication date
25 February 2026
Language
EN