Original paper: public parent PDF, pages 310–312, module C4.6, formal paper code A12201W1. The cover is page 310; questions 1–2 are on page 311 and question 3 is on page 312.
The Banach fixed-point theorem states that a contraction mapping of a nonempty complete metric space has a unique fixed point, and iterations of a map converge to it from every . Precisely, assume a single constant satisfies for every .
Induction gives . The triangle inequality and the geometric series therefore give, for ,
Thus is a Cauchy sequence. By completeness it converges to some . The contraction mapping is a continuous map, so . If is another fixed point, then , forcing . Letting in the estimate also gives the contraction iteration error bound:
If , is constant and the sequence reaches its unique fixed point after the first step; this also removes any ambiguity about in the displayed estimate at .
The native paper prints while specifying alone. This does not determine . We use the intended convention for ; even with an independently chosen real , the same proof gives the requested convergence.
For the sine fixed-point iteration, after one step . On this interval, the sine has the same sign as its argument, and
For example, , since the integrand is positive for . By oddness of the sine, consequently satisfies for . This monotone sequence is bounded below by zero, so it has a limit . The continuity of the sine gives , and the strict inequality above forces .
Hence , and is a fixed point of the sine. It is the only real fixed point: every such point has absolute value at most one, where the preceding strict inequality applies. Thus
The Banach fixed-point theorem does not directly apply to the sine on : the ratios tend to one as , so no uniform contraction mapping constant smaller than one exists there.
A retraction from a topological space onto a subset is a continuous map satisfying for every . Equivalently, , where is the inclusion.
The no-retraction theorem for the finite-dimensional closed unit ball says
Indeed, if were such a retraction, would be a continuous map from into itself. The Brouwer fixed-point theorem would give . Since , lies on the boundary, where . Thus , contradicting . Here the Brouwer fixed-point theorem asserts that every continuous map of a finite-dimensional closed unit ball into itself has a fixed point.
The radial retraction of a punctured ball gives a retraction: project away from the removed interior point until reaching the unit sphere. Write , , and set
The equation is the quadratic equation
Its constant term is negative, so it has exactly one positive root, namely . Since , that positive root satisfies . Thus for every in the closed unit ball.
The displayed expression is a continuous map on the punctured closed unit ball: its denominator is nonzero there, and its square root has strictly positive argument. If , is the unique positive root, so . These are exactly the requirements for a retraction. The missing interior point is essential: the formula need not extend continuously to , in agreement with the no-retraction theorem.
The retraction of a Hilbert ball onto its sphere exists. In the real Hilbert space , let be the unilateral shift operator, and let . For in the closed unit ball , define
The orthogonality of and gives . Thus is a continuous map into the unit sphere. It has no fixed point: would imply for every . A constant sequence in must be zero, whereas .
Put , which is nonzero everywhere, and define
This is a continuous map on the whole closed unit ball, including zero. To check its range, observe that , so
If , then , hence and . Therefore is a retraction.
Geometrically this is the second intersection of the line from through with the unit sphere. In fact
The construction illustrates why the finite-dimensional hypothesis in the no-retraction theorem matters. The closed unit ball of is not a compact set in the norm topology.
Let be the nonnegative portion of the unit sphere specified in the paper. If for some , then this nonzero vector is an eigenvector with eigenvalue zero, which already proves the assertion.
Otherwise for every , and
is a continuous map from to itself. Indeed, every entry of is nonnegative because is a nonnegative matrix and every entry of is nonnegative. By the supplied homeomorphism , the continuous map maps the finite-dimensional closed unit ball into itself. The Brouwer fixed-point theorem supplies a fixed point, hence for some . Therefore
Together with the zero case this proves that has a nonnegative eigenvalue, with a nonnegative eigenvector. For , the auxiliary closed unit ball is the one-point space and the argument remains valid. No claim of strict positivity of every entry of the eigenvector is needed.
For Banach spaces , a nonlinear compact operator is a continuous map that sends every bounded set to a relatively compact subset of : the closure of its image is a compact set. For a continuous map, the image condition is equivalent to requiring that every bounded sequence has a subsequence along which converges in the norm topology of . For a linear operator, this is the usual compact operator definition; the continuity requirement is included explicitly here because the subsequent applications are nonlinear.
The compact-domain version of the Schauder fixed-point theorem says
A useful equivalent version replaces by a nonempty closed bounded convex set and assumes is a continuous map with relatively compact image. This latter form will be used for the partial differential equation. Both forms assert existence of a fixed point, without asserting uniqueness.
Let be the affine hull and put . If , is a singleton and is homeomorphic to . Suppose . Choose affinely independent points of spanning . Their simplex is contained in because is a convex set, and its barycentre has a neighbourhood in contained in that simplex. Identifying with , put . For some ,
Here the inner inclusion follows from that neighbourhood, and the outer one follows from the compactness of .
Use the Minkowski functional
The inclusions imply . The fact that is a convex set implies : if and , then is a convex combination of points of . Also for . Consequently
Thus is a continuous function. Since is closed and contains zero, : the forward inclusion is immediate, and for the reverse inclusion one takes a limit of with , using positive homogeneity and the fact that is a convex set. For , , so this limiting argument has no division by zero.
Define a radial continuous map by
Each ray meets in exactly . Hence is a bijection from to . Away from zero its continuity follows from that of , and at zero . A continuous map that is a bijection from a compact space to a Hausdorff space is a homeomorphism. Therefore
Using the affine hull is essential: can have empty interior in the ambient .
We first prove the compact-domain Schauder fixed-point theorem. Let be a nonempty compact convex set in a Banach space , and let be a continuous map. The Brouwer fixed-point theorem states that every continuous map of a finite-dimensional closed unit ball into itself has a fixed point. By the homeomorphism proved in part (a)(ii), it applies equally to any nonempty finite-dimensional compact convex set, including a singleton.
For , use the supplied Schauder approximation lemma to obtain a finite-dimensional linear subspace and a continuous map with . The set is nonempty because it contains . It is a compact convex set, since a finite-dimensional linear subspace is closed. Restricting to and applying the Brouwer fixed-point theorem gives , and thus
Take . The compactness of yields a convergent subsequence . The continuity of and the preceding estimate give
For completeness, this also proves the version on a nonempty closed bounded convex set when is relatively compact. Let . The closed convex hull of a compact set in a Banach space is compact. To verify the fact needed here, cover by finitely many balls of radius . Replacing every term of a convex combination by a centre changes it by at most in norm. The convex hull of those finitely many centres is compact in a finite-dimensional linear subspace, so it has a finite net of radius . Thus is totally bounded. Its closure is complete and totally bounded, hence compact. Now , so the compact-domain result supplies a fixed point in .
Use the real zero-trace Sobolev space with norm . The Poincaré inequality on the bounded smooth domain gives , making this an equivalent Sobolev norm. The weak formulation is to find with almost everywhere and
The zero Dirichlet boundary condition is encoded in the Sobolev trace. Formally, the identity follows by multiplying the partial differential equation by a test function and using integration by parts; it then extends to all by density.
To check all terms, boundedness of gives finite Lebesgue measure . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives and
Thus the right side is a bounded linear functional of , since its absolute value is at most . The left side is finite by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. These estimates work for every stated .
Let . For , define by
The Lax-Milgram theorem guarantees a unique : the bilinear form on the left is bounded and coercive in the norm , and the right side is a bounded linear functional by the Poincaré inequality. Testing with gives
Define by . This actually maps into . Indeed the weak maximum principle says that a weak solution of is nonnegative almost everywhere. Here and belongs to . Directly, taking the negative part as a test function gives , so by the Poincaré inequality.
The required fixed point formulation is
Every such fixed point belongs automatically to and satisfies part (b)(i). Conversely, uniqueness in the Lax-Milgram theorem makes every nonnegative weak solution a fixed point of .
We apply the closed-bounded-domain version of the Schauder fixed-point theorem in the Banach space . Write and use from part (b)(ii). Choose
The set is nonempty, bounded, closed and a convex set. For closedness of its positivity condition, if and in , then pointwise , whence .
The weak maximum principle already gives . Our estimates give, for ,
Thus .
To prove continuity, use the pointwise square root estimate for . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality then gives
Hence is a continuous map on , even though the square root need not have a bounded derivative near zero.
Finally,
The Rellich-Kondrachov theorem says that embeds compactly into on a bounded smooth domain. For , , and for every finite target exponent is available, so the required compact embedding holds in every dimension in the question. Thus is relatively compact in .
All hypotheses of the Schauder fixed-point theorem are met. It gives , and part (b)(ii) converts this fixed point into the required weak solution:
Only existence is needed. The construction does not assume that is small or that is a contraction mapping.
A useful form of Minty's lemma is the following. Let be a real Banach space, a nonempty convex set, and a monotone operator that is hemicontinuous. Here operator monotonicity means for , and hemicontinuity means that is continuous on for and . For ,
The forward implication follows from operator monotonicity:
For the reverse implication, fix and take for . The assumed inequality gives
Divide by and send . Hemicontinuity gives , as required.
In the whole-space version, for a monotone operator that is hemicontinuous,
Apply the just-proved result to and ; the resulting inequality for all forces by choosing . This is the variational inequality form of Minty's lemma.
Choose the real zero-trace Sobolev space
The Poincaré inequality makes this an equivalent Sobolev norm. Since the dimension is five, the Sobolev conjugate exponent is . The Sobolev embedding theorem gives continuously. Boundedness of and Lp inclusion on a finite measure space then give continuously, say .
For , the weak formulation is
The zero Dirichlet boundary condition is imposed through the Sobolev trace. Hölder's inequality verifies every term:
Thus , while , and all three pairings are finite bounded linear functionals in . The choice is sufficient; it is not intended to be the largest possible space of data.
For the spaces in part (b)(i) and fixed , define by
For each , this is a linear functional in , and the estimates in part (b)(i) show
Hence belongs to the continuous dual space , and sends bounded sets to bounded sets. The weak formulation is exactly
The forcing term is included in so that its right side is zero, as requested.
For , the forcing terms cancel, giving
The scalar function is strictly increasing on all of , so the second integrand is nonnegative. For the first one, use the quartic gradient monotonicity inequality. Put and for real vectors . Expanding gives
Consequently
The last strict inequality uses the Poincaré inequality: if the weak gradient of vanishes, then . This proves that is a strictly monotone operator.
We prove existence by the direct method in the calculus of variations, making the step with weakly compact sets explicit. For and , introduce the functional
It is finite by part (b)(i). Hölder's inequality and the Sobolev embedding theorem give
Thus is a coercive function, bounded below, and every minimizing sequence is bounded in .
The space is a reflexive Banach space: it is isomorphic to a closed linear subspace of the finite product of the reflexive spaces recording the function and its weak derivatives. A bounded sequence in a reflexive Banach space has a weakly convergent subsequence. Hence, after passing to a subsequence, a minimizing sequence satisfies in . The continuous linear maps into and into preserve weak convergence, so
The norm in any Banach space has weak lower semicontinuity, since it is the supremum of absolute values of bounded linear functionals of dual norm at most one, by the Hahn-Banach theorem. Therefore the two nonnegative norm powers in have weak lower semicontinuity. Also belongs to and is continuous for weak convergence. It follows that
For any , the real function has a minimum at . Its derivative there is
This differentiation is justified directly by finite polynomial expansions: the fourth power of the Euclidean norm of and the eighth power of have integrable coefficients by Hölder's inequality. Thus , giving existence of a weak solution.
If are two weak solutions, testing the difference by and using part (b)(iii) gives
Hence
No sign assumption on or on the weak solution is required.
Take the functional
The factor is essential: the derivative of is , while the gradient with respect to of is . As in part (c), finite polynomial expansions and Hölder's inequality justify differentiation along every direction , giving .
We prove the global and strict minimum directly. The strictly convex functions and satisfy their tangent inequalities
with strict inequality when the respective arguments differ. For example, strict convexity of follows from strict operator monotonicity of its gradient, proved by the midpoint identity in part (b)(iii); strict convexity of follows because its derivative is strictly increasing.
Apply these inequalities pointwise to and , then integrate. The weak formulation at with test function gives
If in , the Poincaré inequality implies on a set of positive Lebesgue measure. The first tangent inequality is strict on that set and the second is nonnegative everywhere. Their integrable remainders therefore have strictly positive total integral. Hence
Thus is the unique global minimizer of . Conversely, every minimizer has zero directional derivative in every direction and so satisfies , which also identifies it with the unique weak solution from part (c).
Original solutions to all four questions and all twelve terminal parts of the Fixed Point Methods for Non-Linear PDEs paper sat on 4 June 2008. Source: released Mathematics papers, Part C 2007 11.pdf.
Here “contractive” means strictly distance-decreasing: . “Strongly contractive” means a contraction mapping with one uniform constant satisfying .
If distinct were both fixed points, strict decrease would give , a contradiction. Thus there is at most one fixed point. This proves uniqueness if a fixed point exists; the pointwise strict inequality alone does not assert existence.
The contraction mapping theorem states that a self-map of a nonempty complete metric space with a uniform contraction constant has a unique fixed point . For every starting point, the iteration converges to , with .
For the cosine fixed-point iteration, any real gives . This closed interval is complete, and cosine maps it into . The mean value theorem gives
with . Apply the contraction mapping theorem to the tail starting at . Therefore for every real initial value. Numerically . The global real-line derivative bound is only one; entering the invariant interval supplies the strict uniform bound needed by the theorem.
The Brouwer fixed-point theorem says that every continuous map has a fixed point. To use the supplied outward vector field zero theorem, first extend the construction to all of . Let
The radial retraction onto a closed ball is continuous, so is a continuous vector field on the required whole space. On , the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
The supplied theorem gives with . There , hence . This explicit extension avoids presuming that the original map was defined outside the ball.
A nonlinear compact operator is a continuous map that sends bounded sets of its domain to relatively compact subsets of the target space; linearity is not part of this general definition.
For the specified diagonal operator on sequence space on l2 sequence space,
so it is well-defined, linear and bounded. Let retain only its first output coordinates. This is a finite-rank operator, and
The upper bound follows by estimating each tail multiplier by ; equality follows on the unit coordinate vector . Finite-rank operators between Banach spaces are compact, and a limit of compact linear operators in operator norm is compact, the norm-closedness of compact operators. Therefore .
The Schauder fixed-point theorem states that a continuous compact self-map of a nonempty closed bounded convex set in a Banach space has a fixed point. Equivalently in this bounded-domain version, it suffices for the image of the map to be relatively compact. The theorem guarantees existence, without requiring a contraction estimate or promising uniqueness.
Work in the Banach space with its supremum norm, and take the nonempty closed bounded convex set . Define
For the absolute value is unnecessary, and . Thus . Also, for ,
so and in particular is continuous.
The image is uniformly bounded, and , so it is equicontinuous. The Arzelà-Ascoli theorem says that a uniformly bounded equicontinuous family in has relatively compact closure in the uniform norm. Hence is compact, and the Schauder fixed-point theorem supplies , the required solution. In fact the displayed contraction estimate also lets the contraction mapping theorem give uniqueness within and convergence of the corresponding Picard iteration. The initial constant here is the printed integer .
Using the dual pairing, a monotone operator satisfies for all . It is a strongly monotone operator if some gives
A nonlinear coercive operator with respect to satisfies as in .
Strong monotonicity, with , gives
After division, the lower bound is , proving coercivity. Reflexivity and separability are not needed for this particular estimate.
Take the zero-boundary Sobolev space with norm . The Poincaré inequality makes this equivalent to the usual Sobolev norm. Define
The weak formulation is and for every .
In dimension three the Sobolev embedding theorem gives , so . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and Poincaré inequality yield
Thus for every , and . Finally
since . Hence is strongly monotone with constant one in the chosen norm.
One-dimensional Sobolev embedding gives a continuous representative for each , with zero endpoint values, so the pointwise obstacle condition is meaningful. The positive part is Lipschitz and vanishes near both endpoints because . It therefore belongs to and satisfies , proving that is nonempty.
If and , then , so is a convex set. If in , the estimate gives uniform convergence. Passing to the limit in shows . Thus the admissible set is nonempty, closed and convex.
For any , the segment stays in for . Since is a minimizer, the right derivative of its energy at is nonnegative. The first variation therefore gives the variational inequality
The factor two comes from the quadratic gradient term. Only a one-sided inequality follows because a variation pointing below the obstacle need not be admissible.
The noncontact set is open. For , the positive gap above the obstacle has a positive minimum on the support of . Thus both and are admissible for sufficiently small . Applying the variational inequality to both signs yields
Hence the Euler-Lagrange equation on the noncontact set is
It holds classically under the assumed smoothness. On the contact set the obstacle prevents the negative variations used to obtain this equality, so a variational inequality remains the appropriate global description.
Let both solve the variational inequality. Test the inequality for with and the one for with , then add. Writing gives
since cosine is Lipschitz with constant one. Since , the fundamental theorem of calculus and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality give ; integrating gives . Therefore
For , the coefficient is positive, so and the zero boundary value gives . This proves uniqueness with an explicit sufficient smallness condition. More generally any Poincaré inequality constant gives the condition ; optimizing that constant is unnecessary for the requested conclusion. The underlying principle is uniqueness for a strongly monotone variational inequality.

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