Transactions of the American Mathematical Society

Author(s): Steven N. Evans; Ruth J. Williams
Journal: Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 351 (1999), 1377-1389.
MSC (1991): Primary 60J60, 60J35; Secondary 35B05, 35K10, 60H30
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Abstract: If

is a solution of a one-dimensional, parabolic, second-order, linear partial differential equation (PDE), then it is known that, under suitable conditions, the number of zero-crossings of the function $u(t,\cdot)$ decreases (that is, does not increase) as time

increases. Such theorems have applications to the study of blow-up of solutions of semilinear PDE, time dependent Sturm Liouville theory, curve shrinking problems and control theory. We generalise the PDE results by showing that the transition operator of a (possibly time-inhomogenous) one-dimensional diffusion reduces the number of zero-crossings of a function or even, suitably interpreted, a signed measure. Our proof is completely probabilistic and depends in a transparent manner on little more than the sample-path continuity of diffusion processes.

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Retrieve articles in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society with MSC (1991): 60J60, 60J35, 35B05, 35K10, 60H30

Steven N. Evans
Affiliation: Department of Statistics #3860, University of California at Berkeley, 367 Evans Hall, Berkeley, California 94720-3860
Email: evans@stat.berkeley.edu

Ruth J. Williams
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0112
Email: williams@russel.ucsd.edu

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9947-99-02341-7
PII: S 0002-9947(99)02341-7
Keywords: Zero--crossing, variation diminishing, time--inhomogeneous diffusion, measure--valued process, martingale problem, partial differential equation
Received by editor(s): January 16, 1998
Additional Notes: Research of the first author supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9703845
Research of the second author supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9703891
Copyright of article: Copyright 1999, American Mathematical Society

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