A heat flow for the mean field equation on a finite graph

TL;DR

This paper introduces a heat flow method on finite graphs to solve the mean field equation, proving existence, uniqueness, and convergence of solutions, which advances understanding of nonlinear PDEs on discrete structures.

Contribution

It develops a novel heat flow approach for the mean field equation on finite graphs, establishing existence, uniqueness, and convergence results, including a Lojasiewicz-Simon inequality adaptation.

Findings

Unique global solutions exist for all initial data and parameters.

Solutions converge uniformly to a steady state solving the mean field equation.

The approach applies even when the potential function Q is zero.

Abstract

Inspired by works of Cast\'eras (Pacific J. Math., 2015), Li-Zhu (Calc. Var., 2019) and Sun-Zhu (Calc. Var., 2020), we propose a heat flow for the mean field equation on a connected finite graph $G=(V,E)$. Namely $$ \left\{\begin{array}{lll} \partial_t\phi(u)=\Delta u-Q+\rho \frac{e^u}{\int_Ve^ud\mu}\\[1.5ex] u(\cdot,0)=u_0, \end{array}\right. $$ where $\Delta$ is the standard graph Laplacian, $\rho$ is a real number, $Q:V\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ is a function satisfying $\int_VQd\mu=\rho$, and $\phi:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ is one of certain smooth functions including $\phi(s)=e^s$. We prove that for any initial data $u_0$ and any $\rho\in\mathbb{R}$, there exists a unique solution $u:V\times[0,+\infty)\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ of the above heat flow; moreover, $u(x,t)$ converges to some function $u_\infty:V\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ uniformly in $x\in V$ as $t\rightarrow+\infty$, and $u_\infty$ is a solution of the mean field equation $$\Delta u_\infty-Q+\rho\frac{e^{u_\infty}}{\int_Ve^{u_\infty}d\mu}=0.$$ Though $G$ is a finite graph, this result is still unexpected, even in the special case $Q\equiv 0$. Our approach reads as follows: the short time existence of the heat flow follows from the ODE theory; various integral estimates give its long time existence; moreover we establish a Lojasiewicz-Simon type inequality and use it to conclude the convergence of the heat flow.