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