Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 107 1 b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A scaled Interpolation inequality in Holder spaces says that for , , and every ,where . Corresponding interpolation between any two Hölder orders follows by applying this estimate to derivatives and rescaling the ball.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 107 1 d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The Interior Schauder estimate iswhere depends only on , , the ellipticity constant, and the stated coefficient bounds.
It is enough first to prove the estimate for the Hölder seminorm of . The Interpolation inequality in Holder spaces controls and by a small multiple of plus ; the small term is later absorbed. Freezing at the centre of each ball and moving coefficient differences and lower-order terms to the right reduces the local estimate toOnce this is known, the Simon absorption lemma gives the desired estimate on .
For completeness, prove the frozen-coefficient estimate by contradiction. If it failed, choose solutions , points , and scales at which the scale-invariant Hölder quotient is almost maximal. Let be the quadratic Taylor polynomial of at and defineThen , the Hessians have uniformly bounded local seminorms, and the normalization makes their oscillation nonzero on a fixed ball. The localized equation iswhere the coefficient matrices converge locally uniformly to one constant positive-definite matrix and the given normalized error tends locally uniformly to zero.
The Arzela-Ascoli theorem produces a locally convergent subsequence with limit satisfying a constant-coefficient elliptic equation on . A linear rotation and scaling turn it into a harmonic function. The normalization gives but a nonconstant Hessian, while maximality of the scaled quotient gives growth at most . Applying the Liouville theorem to derivatives shows that every second derivative is constant because . This contradicts the normalized Hessian oscillation. The frozen estimate follows, and interpolation plus absorption completes the proof.