A partial uniqueness result and an asymptotically sharp nonuniqueness result for the Zhikov problem on the torus

TL;DR

This paper investigates the uniqueness and nonuniqueness of solutions to a diffusion equation on the torus with divergence-free drift, establishing conditions for uniqueness and demonstrating the sharpness of these conditions through duality, Nash iteration, and density arguments.

Contribution

It provides a partial uniqueness result for solutions with certain regularity and constructs a sharp nonuniqueness example, expanding understanding of solution behavior for the Zhikov problem.

Findings

Uniqueness holds for $b ext{ in } W^{1,1}$.

Nonuniqueness is dense for $b ext{ in } L^p$ with $p$ in a specific range.

Solutions are flexible for $b ext{ in } L^p$ with certain $p$ values.

Abstract

We consider the stationary diffusion equation $-\mathrm{div} (\nabla u + bu )=f$ in $n$-dimensional torus $\mathbb{T}^n$, where $f\in H^{-1}$ is a given forcing and $b\in L^p$ is a divergence-free drift. Zhikov (Funkts. Anal. Prilozhen., 2004) considered this equation in the case of a bounded, Lipschitz domain $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n$, and proved existence of solutions for $b\in L^{2n/(n+2)}$, uniqueness for $b\in L^2$, and has provided a point-singularity counterexample that shows nonuniqueness for $b\in L^{3/2-}$ and $n=3,4,5$. We apply a duality method and a DiPerna-Lions-type estimate to show uniqueness of the solutions constructed by Zhikov for $b\in W^{1,1}$. We use a Nash iteration to demonstrate sharpness of this result, and also show that solutions in $H^1\cap L^{p/(p-1)}$ are flexible for $b\in L^p$, $p\in [1,2(n-1)/(n+1))$; namely we show that the set of $b\in L^p$ for which nonuniqueness in the class $H^1\cap L^{p/(p-1)}$ occurs is dense in the divergence-free subspace of $L^p$.