On divergence-free drifts (Q649767)

The authors investigate the validity and failure of Liouville theorems and Harnack inequalities for parabolic and elliptic operators with low regularity coefficients. They are interested in operators of the form \(\partial _t - \Delta +b\cdot \nabla \) resp. \(-\Delta +b\cdot \nabla \) with a divergence-free drift \(b\). They prove the Liouville theorem and Harnack inequality when \(b\in L_{\infty }(\text{BMO}^{-1})\) resp. \(b\in \text{BMO}^{-1}\) and provide a counterexample demonstrating sharpness of this conditions on the drift. Their results can be generalized to divergence-form operators with an elliptic symmetric part and a BMO skew-symmetric part. They prove the existence of a modulus of continuity for solutions to the elliptic problem in two dimensions, depending on the non-scale-invariant norm \(\| b\| _{L_1}\). In three dimensions, on the other hand, bounded solutions with \(L_{1}\) drifts may be discontinuous. In order to get these results, the authors prove the higher integrability of suitable weak solutions. This fact allows them to adopt Moser's method to prove the Harnack inequality.