On the fundamental solution of an elliptic equation in nondivergence form

Vladimir Maz'ya, Robert McOwen

Published 2008-06-25Version 1

We consider the existence and asymptotics for the fundamental solution of an elliptic operator in nondivergence form, ${\mathcal L}(x,\del_x)=a_{ij}(x)\del_i\del_i$, for $n\geq 3$. We assume that the coefficients have modulus of continuity satisfying the square Dini condition. For fixed $y$, we construct a solution of ${\mathcal L}Z_y(x)=0$ for $0<|x-y|<\e$ with explicit leading order term which is $O(|x-y|^{2-n}e^{I(x,y)})$ as $x\to y$, where $I(x,y)$ is given by an integral and plays an important role for the fundamental solution: if $I(x,y)$ approaches a finite limit as $x\to y$, then we can solve ${\mathcal L}(x,\del_x)F(x,y)=\de(x-y)$, and $F(x,y)$ is asymptotic as $x\to y$ to the fundamental solution for the constant coefficient operator ${\mathcal L}(y,\del_x)$. On the other hand, if $I(x,y)\to -\infty$ as $x\to y$ then the solution $Z_y(x)$ violates the "extended maximum principle" of Gilbarg & Serrin \cite{GS} and is a distributional solution of ${\mathcal L}(x,\del_x)Z_y(x)=0$ for $|x-y|<\e$ although $Z_y$ is not even bounded as $x\to y$.