A Bourgain-Brezis-Mironescu result for fractional thin films

TL;DR

This paper investigates the simultaneous limit of fractional Sobolev seminorms on thin domains as the domain thickness approaches zero and the fractional parameter approaches one, revealing a unified convergence to a reduced Dirichlet integral.

Contribution

It establishes a new convergence result for fractional seminorms on thin domains when both parameters tend to their limits simultaneously, identifying the precise scaling factor involved.

Findings

Convergence of squared $H^s$-seminorms to a reduced Dirichlet integral under simultaneous limits.

Identification of the scaling factor $(1-s) \, \varepsilon^{2s-3}$ for the limit.

Analysis of the critical membrane scaling and its relation to the limits.

Abstract

We consider the limit of squared $H^s$-Gagliardo seminorms on thin domains of the form $\Omega_\varepsilon=\omega\times(0,\varepsilon)$ in $\mathbb R^d$. When $\varepsilon$ is fixed, multiplying by $1-s$ such seminorms have been proved to converge as $s\to 1^-$ to a dimensional constant $c_d$ times the Dirichlet integral on $\Omega_\varepsilon$ by Bourgain, Brezis and Mironescu. In its turn such Dirichlet integrals divided by $\varepsilon$ converge as $\varepsilon\to 0$ to a dimensionally reduced Dirichlet integral on $\omega$. We prove that if we let simultaneously $\varepsilon\to 0$ and $s\to 1$ then these squared seminorms still converge to the same dimensionally reduced limit when multiplied by $(1-s) \varepsilon^{2s-3}$, independently of the relative converge speed of $s$ and $\varepsilon$. This coefficient combines the geometrical scaling $\varepsilon^{-1}$ and the fact that relevant interactions for the $H^s$-Gagliardo seminorms are those at scale $\varepsilon$. We also study the usual membrane scaling, obtained by multiplying by $(1-s)\varepsilon^{-1}$, which highlighs the {\em critical scaling} $1-s\sim|\log\varepsilon|^{-1}$, and the limit when $\varepsilon\to 0$ at fixed $s$.