Fourth-order moments of nonnegative measures on \(S^ 2\) and applications (Q1905660)

This paper is mainly devoted to a study of the fifteen-dimensional set of all fourth order moments of a nonnegative Radon (Borel regular) measure on \(S^2\). We seek a complete characterization of the set, a closed cone, with the help of the Hilbert decomposition theorem for nonnegative polynomials of degree four in two variables. Special emphasis is placed on the boundary of this set which is shown to be generated by atomic measures made of five Dirac masses or fewer, which are located on the intersection of \(S^2\) with the zero set of a quadratic form. As a consequence, every point of the moment set is generated by atomic measures made of six Dirac masses or less. Potential applications for this result are in the field of homogenization. In particular, in the setting of linearized elasticity, effective properties of fine mixtures of two phases are investigated. Specifically, the goal is to analyze the coefficients of the linear second order elliptic system satisfied by the weak limit \(u\) of the solution fields \(u^\varepsilon\) to a sequence of elasticity problems of the form \(-\text{div} (A^\varepsilon e(u^\varepsilon))= f\) in \(\Omega\), \(u^\varepsilon=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\), with \(e_{ij}(u^\varepsilon)= \frac{1}{2} (\frac{\partial u_i^\varepsilon}{\partial x_j}+ \frac{\partial u_j^\varepsilon}{\partial x_i})\) in \(\Omega\), \(A^\varepsilon= \chi^\varepsilon A_1+(1- \chi^\varepsilon)A_2\). Here \(A_1\) and \(A_2\) are elasticity tensors and \(\chi^\varepsilon\) is a given arbitrary sequence of characteristic functions on \(\Omega\).