On maps with given Jacobians involving the heat equation (Q1434461)

The authors study two ways of finding diffeomorphisms \(\Phi: \bar\Omega \to \bar\Omega\) which solve \(\det\, D \Phi = f\), where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain of \({\mathbb R}^n\), \(\inf f > 0\) and \(\int_\Omega f = | \Omega| \). The second algorithm imposes the boundary condition \(\Phi (x) =x\) on \(\partial \Omega\). The starting point is a variation on \textit{J. Moser's} idea of building \(\Phi\) by solving a flow problem [see Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 120, 286--294 (1965; Zbl 0141.19407)]. The first algorithm leads to the heat equation with Neumann boundary conditions, while the second leads to a Stokes-type problem. The authors prove that, if \(f\in C^{0, \alpha} (\bar\Omega)\) and \(\Omega\) is of class \(C^{2, \beta}\) for some \(0<\alpha<\beta\), then these algorithms produce the desired diffeomorphisms in the class \(C^{1, \alpha}\). For similar existence theorems we refer to previous papers of \textit{B. Dacorogna} and \textit{J. Moser} [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Anal. Non Linéaire 7, No. 1, 1--26 (1990; Zbl 0707.35041)] and \textit{T. Rivière} and \textit{D. Ye} [NoDEA, Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 3, No. 3, 323--369 (1996; Zbl 0857.35025)].