Analysis of the operator \(\Delta^{-1}\text{div}\) arising in magnetic models (Q879696)

Summary: In the context of micromagnetics the partial differential equation \(\text{div}(-\nabla u+{\mathbf m})=0 \text{ in }\mathbb R^d\) has to be solved in the entire space for a given magnetization \(\mathbf m:\Omega\to\mathbb R^d\) and \(\Omega\subseteq\mathbb R^d\). For an \(L^p\) function \(\mathbf m\) we show that the solution might fail to be in the classical Sobolev space \(W^{1,p}(\mathbb R^d)\) but has to be in a Beppo-Levi class \(W_1^p(\mathbb R^d)\). We prove unique solvability in \(W_1^p(\mathbb R^d)\) and provide a direct ansatz to obtain \(u\) via a non-local integral operator \(\mathcal L_p\) related to the Newtonian potential. A possible discretization to compute \(\nabla(\mathcal L_2 {\mathbf m})\) is mentioned, and it is shown how recently established matrix compression techniques using hierarchical matrices can be applied to the full matrix obtained from the discrete operator.