Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / iii / Paper 107 / 5

Interpret strict ellipticity as uniform ellipticity up to the boundary, as required for the global elliptic boundary value problem. Mere pointwise positive definiteness in the interior is insufficient: $L=x^2{D}^2$ on $(0,1)$ has trivial homogeneous Dirichlet kernel but $Lu=1$ has no $C^2$ solution up to $x=0$.

Set $X=\{u\in C^{2,\alpha }(\overline{\Omega }):u{|}_{\partial \Omega }=0\}$ and $Y=C^{0,\alpha }(\overline{\Omega })$. The Fredholm alternative for an elliptic Dirichlet problem says $L:X\to Y$ is a Fredholm operator of index zero. Its null space $N$ is finite dimensional, its range is closed, and the range codimension equals $\dim N$. Hence $\boxed{N=\{0\}⟺L:X\to Y\text{ is invertible}}$; in this case every forcing has a unique solution.

Otherwise there are nonzero homogeneous solutions and finitely many compatibility conditions: $Lu=f$ is solvable exactly when $\ell (f)=0$ for every continuous linear functional on $Y$ vanishing on $L(X)$. When solvable, its solutions are $u_0+N$. This Fredholm solvability condition can be expressed with formal-adjoint null solutions for smoother coefficients. The functional formulation avoids differentiating the merely $C^{0,\alpha }$ coefficients.

Failure of the bound would give normalized $v_j$ with $\Vert v_j{\Vert }_{\infty }=1$, zero Dirichlet boundary condition, and $\Vert L{v}_j{\Vert }_{C^{0,\alpha }}\to 0$. The global Schauder estimate bounds them in $C^{2,\alpha }$. By compact embedding of Hölder spaces, a subsequence converges in $C^{2,\beta }$ to $v$ with $Lv=0$, zero boundary data and $\Vert v{\Vert }_{\infty }=1$. The uniform Hölder seminorm bounds pass to the limit, so $v\in C^{2,\alpha }$. This contradicts the trivial null space, provingThe global Schauder estimate then gives $\Vert u{\Vert }_{C^{2,\alpha }}\le K\Vert f{\Vert }_{C^{0,\alpha }}$, the bounded-inverse estimate used next.

The Fredholm alternative for an elliptic Dirichlet problem and part (b) give an inverse $S:Y\to X$ of norm at most $K\ge 1$. ChooseOn the closed radius-$\epsilon$ ball $\mathcal{B}\subset X$, set $T(v)=S(\mathcal{Q}(v)+f)$. The stated inequalities giveandThus $T$ is a contraction mapping of the complete metric space $\mathcal{B}$ into itself. The Banach fixed-point theorem gives $u=T(u)$, solving the required nonlinear elliptic boundary value problem. This small-data existence for a nonlinear elliptic Dirichlet problem also gives uniqueness within this small ball; it does not assert global uniqueness.

Let $u=v+\psi$, so $v$ has zero Dirichlet boundary condition. Using the supplied form of the minimal surface equation for a graph, setFor $\Vert \psi {\Vert }_{C^{2,\alpha }}\le \beta \le 1$ and $\Vert v\Vert ,\Vert w\Vert \le 1$, the difference bound impliesandThe shifted arguments stay in the permitted radius-two ball, and $\Vert f_{\psi }{\Vert }_{C^{0,\alpha }}\le C{\beta }^2+C_n\beta$. The Laplacian with zero Dirichlet boundary condition has trivial null space by the maximum principle for harmonic functions. Choose $\beta >0$ small enough that $2C\beta \le \delta$ and $C{\beta }^2+C_n\beta \le {\epsilon }_0$, for the constants in part (c) with $L=\Delta$. Its small-data existence for a nonlinear elliptic Dirichlet problem supplies $v$, and $\boxed{u=v+\psi }$ solves the minimal surface equation for a graph with the required boundary values.